Swallow The Moon
by GhostHelwig
Summary: ...'Summer rains... you can never predict them'. An Edd & Eddy romance. Slash. NEW as of October 2009: Chapter 19 up now!
1. Chapter 1 Swallow The Moon

Disclaimer – I in no way own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or the song "Jupiter" – the Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, the song to Jewel.

This story is mine, however.

Rated R for sexual situations.  Slash.  Please don't read this if you are offended by slash or if you are underage.  Thank you.

Swallow The Moon

     A sigh, a moan.

     Ed listened, humming happily, quietly.  He knew what they did each night.  How could he not?  He sat outside Eddy's window and listened as Eddy and Double D made music.

     _"Venus De Milo in her half-baked shell understood the nature of love very well."_

     Inside the room, Eddy sucked on the side of Double D's neck, causing Double D's back to arch and his breath to catch.  Eddy licked, tasting, savoring.  He couldn't get enough of the sweet-silk flavor of Double D's flesh.  He never could.

     _"She said, 'a good love is delicious, you can't get enough too soon.'"_

     Double D wrapped his arms around Eddy and pulled him up to his lips.  He kissed him deeply, sucking his tongue into the hot-wet cavern of his mouth.  He couldn't get Eddy close enough.  He never could.

     _"It makes you so crazy you want to swallow the moon." _

     Ed looked up at the night sky, still humming.  Stars glittered down at him, making a beautiful pattern that seemed to match the beautiful music he could hear behind him.

_     "Oh, oh Jupiter."_

     Eddy pulled away for a moment to stare down into Double D's face.  His best friend gazed up at him, eyes clear and trusting and beautiful.  So beautiful Eddy's heart caught in his throat.

     He reached out and placed his palm over Double D's heart.  Double D smiled tenderly, softly, as Eddy relished the feel of Double D's heart beating rapidly beneath his hot, sweaty skin. 

     _"Oh, oh be still my little heart."_

     Double D sighed as Eddy's hands tweaked his nipples.  A pleasant burning sensation centered in his chest, and it wasn't until Eddy's talented fingers moved lower that Double D realized the burning wasn't only caused by the pleasure Eddy roused from his nipples.

_     "Oh, oh love is a flame neither timid nor tame."_

     Ed leaned back against the house, his kooky grin plastered to his face.  Summer wind blew by, blew a dying flower into his short hair.  He plucked it out and smiled down at the trapped plant between his fingers as more helpless moans echoed out the window above his head.

     _"Take these stars from my crown.  Let the years fall down."_

     Eddy gently pulled off Double D's hat, always the last to go, and watched with his usual awe as the silky dark hair spilled out onto the bed before him.  The boy whose hair it was blushed deeply at the look on his face, then pulled him down for a surprisingly chaste kiss.

     _"Lay me out in firelight.  Let my skin feel the night."_

     Ed began to nestle back into the wall, still grinning to himself.  It wasn't the most comfortable position, but the cool evening air was soothing, the starlight was magical, and the music made by his two best friends warmed him from head to heart to toes.

     _"Fasten me to your side.  Say it will be soon."_

     Eddy knelt between Double D's legs, using his teeth to administer gentle nips, using his hands and lips to cup and stroke and suck and caress.  Double D cried out, the first words spoken since this night had begun.

     "Please," he gasped, breathless.  "Please."

     _"You make me so crazy baby…"_

     Double D clawed the bed, his back arching up higher than before, his voice cracking on strange, choking moans.

     _"Could swallow the moon."_

     Eddy's hands cupped Double D's firm butt and pulled him closer, swallowing more of him down.  Double D could feel stars bursting behind his eyes.  When the big burst came, he called out his love to the real stars that he couldn't see and the brilliant, rainbow stars that Eddy brought to his world.

     _"My hands are two travelers-"_

     Double D lay back, trying to catch his breath.  Eddy smiled, running his hands over Double D's slender chest, his delicate arms, the tender curve of his feet.

    _"-they've crossed oceans and lands."_

     Ed pulled the flower up to his nose, inhaling the last vestiges of its fragrance.  His other hand caressed the ground, the grass.  They were the most sensuous things he had yet experienced.

     _"Yet they are too small on the continent of your skin."_

     Double D rolled Eddy over onto his back, skimming his hands over Eddy's trembling, sweaty flesh.  Where his hands traveled, his lips followed, and soon Eddy was quivering helplessly beneath him, half-incoherent with pleasure and need and lust.

     _"Wandering…"_

     Double D lightly ran his fingers over Eddy's chest, swirling his fingertips through the sparse chest hair Eddy was always so proud of.

     _"Wandering…"_

     As Eddy writhed and moaned, Double D wrapped his lips around one succulent nipple and sucked hard, then softly, then hard again.  His hands drifted down, drifted around, leaving pleasure-hot-heat in their wake.

     _"I could spend my life…"_

     Eddy twined his fingers into Double D's hair, groaning and sighing and undulating with pleasure.  But no matter how hot he got, no matter how crazed, he was careful with the delicate bones he held so closely – he didn't pull too hard, didn't move too rough.  After all, they could take their time.  They had all the time in the world.

     _"Traveling the length of your body each night."_

     Double D left off his gentle but spirited ministrations to plant tiny, fluttering, butterfly kisses on Eddy's inner thighs.  Eddy gasped and then groaned.

     Double D smiled against his skin, then continued his leisurely exploration of his friend's body.

     _"Oh, oh Jupiter."_

     Ed curled up on the ground, moonlight shining down on him, blending with the flickering candlelight streaming in orange-bright beams through the window.  Double D lit candles every night when he came by.  Seeing him holding a single white candle as he drew Eddy's drapes closed was always Ed's sign that it was time to come over, sit by the window, and dream.

     _"Oh, oh be still my little heart."_

     Eddy smiled as Double D returned to worshiping him with his generous mouth.  If there was a more beautiful sight than Double D nude and enflamed and flushed with arousal he'd yet to see it.

     _"Oh, oh love is a flame neither timid nor tame."_

     Double D met Eddy's dark, adoring, aflame eyes and smiled through his blush.  If there was a more alluring sight than Eddy nude and entranced and panting with need he'd never believe it.

     _"Take these stars from my crown."_

     Ed smiled up at the star-filled sky.  How he envied his friends.  They got to make their own stars.

     _"Let the years fall down."_

     Eddy sat up abruptly, and pushed Double D's graceful form back onto the bed.

     _"Lay me out in firelight."_

     Candlelight flickered over Double D's heated skin as Eddy ran one finger down his slick chest, then pulled his legs gently apart.

     _"Let my skin feel the night."_

     A breeze drifted in the window, and for a moment both boys looked over as they thought they heard the familiar sound of Ed's contented humming.  Then they turned back to each other.  And Ed was forgotten.

     _"Fasten me to your side."_

     Ed sighed a little, softly.  He wished he was in there, with his two best friends.  He wasn't entirely sure what they did, but their private nightly ritual made such beautiful music.

     _"Say it will be soon."_

     Eddy reached over and rummaged around in his nightstand drawer.  When he didn't find what he needed, he swore quietly and stood up, crossing the room to rummage in his dresser.  Finally, he pulled out what he was looking for.

     When he looked back at his circular bed, Double D was sitting up, dark hair in disarray, dark eyes flashing with need, with heat.  Eddy could see the urgency in the dark gaze.  His mouth went dry.  He hurried back to the bed.

     _"You make me so crazy baby…"_

     Eddy rested Double D's legs on his shoulders, but before he could do anything Double D had taken the lube from him and squirted some into his palm.  He rubbed it all over Eddy's hardness, and by the time he was done Eddy was burning.  He wanted Double D so bad…

     _"Could swallow the moon."_

     With a quiet sigh that turned quickly into a deep moan Eddy entered him.

     _"Oh, oh Jupiter."_

     "Oh," was all Double D said as Eddy pushed inside him.  It was all he could say.

     "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh…"

     _"Oh, oh be still my little heart."_

     Eddy had to remain in control.  He had to hold on, to prolong…

     But Double D was warm and tight and pulsing around him, and it shredded his control.

     _"Oh, oh love is a flame neither timid nor tame."_

     Eddy was holding back.  Every time they did this Eddy held back.  For him.

     But this time Double D was tired of control.  Rigid control had ruled him most of his life.  What he loved about Eddy was his lack of it.  And for once, he wanted to be free.

     He knew by now what felt good to him.  So when Eddy would've continued at a slow and steady pace, Double D pushed his straining hips upwards, further impaling himself.

     _"Take these stars from my crown."_

     Eddy looked down at Double D in utter, stupefied amazement.  Double D gazed right back at him, though his eyes were glazed over with pleasure.

     Sweat sparkled like diamonds on his skin, and the wanton picture he made took Eddy's breath away.

     _"Let the years fall down."_

     All their shared history, all the bickering and the bonding and the banter and the laughter, had brought them to this point.  And now, as Eddy rocked inside Double D and Double D rocked back to meet him, all of it took on too much significance and none of it mattered.

     _"Lay me out in firelight."_

     Double D was burning up, he was dying.  He was parched for something, something only Eddy could ever give him.

     One slender hand reached up and slid around the back of Eddy's skull, bringing him in for a long, deep kiss.

     _"Let my skin feel the night."_

     Double D's hot breath stirred the hair at the side of Eddy's face and suddenly it seemed all his cells were on fire.  This dance was killing him-

     But what a way to go.

     _"Fasten me to your side."_

     Ed waited with baited breath outside, feeling the knowledge rise up in his gut.  'Soon,' his mind told him.  'Soon.'

     _"Say it will be soon."_

     Eddy thrust harder, slamming up against the spot he knew Double D liked most with almost punishing roughness.  He could hear the hoarse quality of Double D's moans, and he knew it would be soon.

     For both of them.

     _"You make me so crazy baby…"_

     Double D clutched at his back now, clawing, trying to maintain some sort of physical hold on reality as he felt his mind spiraling away, dissolving in pleasure.

     _"Could swallow the moon…"_

     They erupted at once, Eddy releasing deep inside Double D with a violent cry, Double D moaning like he was dying as he shot into the air.  Some landed on Eddy's mouth, and he licked it away with a satisfied smile.  Double D could only blush becomingly.

     _"Swallow the moon…"_

     Ed drifted off to sleep staring up at the stars, the flower crushed to his nose, listening to the music as it began to fade, dreaming of a time when he would be able to make his own.

     _"Swallow the moon…"_

     Eddy collapsed bonelessly beside Double D, then gathered Double D into his arms.  The boy who had at one point in his life been known to be thrown into a panic whenever anything in his general vicinity was too 'dirty' or too 'messy' snuggled closer to his lover, whose seed slowly dripped from between his slender legs.

     _"Swallow the moon."_

     Eddy nuzzled his head into Double D's sweet-smelling hair, only able to go to sleep once all his five senses were entrenched in Double D.  Soon enough he was drifting off.

     No words of love passed between them before he slept.  But then, none needed to be.  Some things didn't have to be spoken – they were already true.

     Sleepily Double D leaned over Eddy and blew the white candle out.


	2. Chapter 2 Tears Of Rage

Disclaimer- I don't own Ed, Edd N Eddy, or "Strong Enough."  The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, and the song belongs to Sheryl Crow.

The story, however, is mine.

Special thanks to darthelwig for giving me the idea to make this a story of various songfics all tied together.  If it's bad, you can stone _her_.  

Rated R 'cause, well… no reason, 'cept that the first chapter was.  Some foul language, some angst.  A slash fic.  You were warned.

Oh, and for anyone who wants to know, the Ed quote comes from the episode entitled "Ed, Ed And Away," the one where they chase a balloon. 

Tears Of Rage

     Ed didn't think he'd be hearing the music tonight, but he waited outside Eddy's window anyway.

     Double D had come by, but he hadn't held a candle.  Instead, he just stared out blindly at the cul-de-sac where he'd spent so much of his life before drawing the blinds with shaking fingers.

     Ed wondered.  He sat outside, still as a stone, and wondered.

     _"God I feel like hell tonight."_

     Double D lay curled up on his side on the bed, his back facing Eddy.  His red shirt, always loose, shifted along his skin as his back moved.  He could be sleeping-

     Or crying.

     Though Eddy wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to find out which.

     _"Tears of rage I cannot fight."_

     Eddy could feel tears welling in his own eyes as he sat forward in his chair, studying Double D's silent, almost quivering form.  He hadn't meant to hurt him.  But then, he never really did.

     And how could he explain it this time, now that their interactions had this… depth?  They were in too deep now.  Nothing Eddy said could make things better.

     But anything he said could make things worse.

     _"I'd be the last to help you understand."_

     Ed stayed sitting even when his legs began to cramp.  Where had the beautiful music gone?  Why had Eddy and Double D stopped making it?

     It was so pretty – why was it over?

     Ed didn't want it to be over.

     _"Are you strong enough to be my man?"_

     Against his will Eddy's hand reached out and hovered tentatively over Double D's shoulder.  The red-clad shoulder quaked involuntarily.  So Double D was awake, after all.

     _"My man."_

     Eddy's hand dropped back to his lap.

     _"Nothing's true and nothing's right."_

     Ed was not in his happy place.  It was too quiet.  Everything was all wrong.

     He looked up and stared at the vast, night-black sky.  Even the stars were gone.  He thought maybe they were hiding, that there was something happening this night that they didn't want to see.

     _"So let me be alone tonight."_

     The worried stare had become a heated glare.  Everything upsetting eventually made Eddy angry, and right now that huddled form hunched in on itself, so frail and broken and vulnerable, made him furious.  What did Double D want from him anyway?

     _"'Cause you can't change the way I am."_

     He couldn't be any different than he was.  He couldn't change.  No one could.  You were who you were from birth.  Ed had been born without a brain (at least in Eddy's opinion), while Double D had been born with too much of one, his little fist probably clutching a book even as he slid down his mother's birth canal.

     And Eddy?

     He'd been born with both his hands clenched into fists.

     _"Are you strong enough to be my man?"_

     One of his fists had been waiting for money.

     The other was just a fist.

     _"Lie to me…"_

     Ed clenched his hands over his ears, blocking out the crushing silence.  He would not despair.  He would just imagine the music he knew so well, and if he concentrated hard enough maybe then it would really be there.  It happened that way in some of his comic books.

     _"I promise I'll believe."_

     "I'm no good for you," Eddy whispered, his fists clenched tightly, as tight as the vise that wound around his chest.  He knew Double D had heard him.  He waited for Double D to contradict him while the vise got tighter and tighter.

     _"Lie to me…"_

     But Double D didn't say a word.

     _"But please don't leave."_

     Angry tears once more flooded Eddy's eyes.

     _"Don't leave."_

     No one knew Eddy like Double D did.  Not his older brother, certainly not his parents, not even Ed, whom he'd known longer.  No one knew the secrets and spirals and heat of his self quite like his lover.  And no one ever would.

     "I have a face I cannot show."

     Eddy despised being vulnerable to anyone.  But he'd let Double D in, because he just couldn't keep him out.

     But he couldn't see anymore, what the lines were.  What role did he assume now?  Lover?  Hardly the time.  Comforter?  He wasn't any good at that.  Just a simple friend?  He knew he wasn't any good at that, either.

     But what was he to do now?  How could all this be undone?  He wanted to return to the stars.

     He wanted Double D to look at him.

     But just how could one cure what one caused?

     _"I make the rules up as I go."_

     He knew who he was – a greedy, self-centered jerk.  He knew that.  It was a game, just a stupid game.  It kept people from getting too close, from caring too much.

     Until Double D.

     _"It's try and love me if you can."_

     It wasn't working.  Ed tried, not understanding how his comic books could let him down, but no matter how much he concentrated the music wouldn't return.  It was just gone.

     But it was so beautiful.  Couldn't his friends see?  They were the only ones capable of creating such beautiful music.

     They were the only ones who could return the stars.

     _"Are you strong enough to be my man?"_

     Double D's shoulder rose and fell in a silent sigh that nonetheless spoke volumes.  Eddy wanted to scream at him, to rage at him until the passive boy was incensed enough to rage right back.

     That at least would be preferable to this deathly silence.

     _"My man."_

     But he couldn't scream at Double D.  All his speech was gone, destroyed by Double D's absolute, arctic quiet.

     _"Are you strong enough…"_

     If only Double D would yell, or weep openly, or even whisper swear words under his breath, instead of just lying there looking pale and wretched.  Then Eddy would know he hadn't broken him.  Then he'd know it would be okay.

     _"To be my man..?"_

     Ed wanted to throw himself through the window, to climb in and ask questions, to yell until they made those sweet sounds again.  He wanted to hear their voices sing.

     But beautiful music such as theirs could never be forced.

     So Ed sat still as a stone, and waited.

     _"Are you strong enough…"_

     Maybe Double D couldn't handle it.  Maybe he'd finally gone too far.  Maybe…

     Maybe it really was over.

     _"To be my man..?"_

     But it couldn't be…

     _"Are you strong enough?"_

     Could it?

     _"My man."_

     Well, if that's how it was going to be, Eddy could take it.  Let Sockhead give up, give him up.  Let Sockhead throw away every beautiful, intricate, intimate thing they'd ever shared.  He wouldn't give a damn.  He could let Sockhead walk out at any time.  It didn't matter to him at all.

     _"When I've shown you that I just don't care…"_

     God, Eddy wanted to hit something.  Or someone.  Anything would do.  He just needed a release.  He thought about using a pillow, but they were too close to Double D, and hitting one now just… wasn't a good idea.

     So he settled with beating himself over the head with his own idiocy instead.

     _"When I'm throwing punches in the air…"_

     Tears leaked out of Eddy's eyes, but he flatly refused to break down and cry.  If this was how Double D wanted it, then this was how it would be.

     And it was alright.  It really was.

     If it would just stop killing him, then he'd be alright.

     _"When I've broken down and I can't stand…"_

     He should just go.  Let Sockhead keep his bed, like he kept his head and his heart; Eddy could always sleep on the couch.  (Assuming, of course, that he slept at all.)  Or sneak into his parents' room and into their bed to let himself be rocked and comforted until all this had faded into nothing but an empty memory.

     But that was a pipe dream, and he knew it.

     In his head, he could hear Ed saying to Double D once, "you are not alone, my friend.  I dream of pipes, too."  What he wouldn't give for a bear hug from the big lug right now, even if it knocked his world askew and left him breathless and panting, like it customarily did.

     Maybe he could sneak into Ed's bed to sleep.

     Or Double D's.

     _"Would you be man enough to be my man?"_

     As if summoned by the thought, Double D shifted onto his back.  The whites of his eyes were crimson, his irises appeared to be swimming in blood, but his gaze was steady.  He stared at Eddy for the longest time in contemplative silence.

     _"Lie to me…"_

     Double D held open his arms.

     _"I promise I'll believe."_

     Eddy crawled onto the bed and nestled his head into the crook of Double D's neck.  Though Double D recoiled a little at his touch, his body trembling at the press of unbearable flesh against his, both boys pretended that he didn't.

     _"Lie to me…"_

     Clouds drifted, and one single, shining, yellow-bright star winked in and out of existence before Ed's startled eyes.  It reminded Ed of Double D's candle.  It was enough.

     His hands fell away from his ears as he finally allowed himself to slump over on the ground to sleep.

     _"But please…"_

     Eddy's tears were wetting the side of Double D's neck.  Double D patted his back, awkward despite all the intimacies shared between them.  He only knew Eddy had slipped into slumber when the wetness began to dry.

     His own tears were beginning all over again.

     He used his free hand to wipe one away, then paused, wondering.

     Cautiously, his fingertips brushed over the black eye Eddy had given him.

     _"Don't leave."_

     It stung.


	3. Chapter 3 Solid Ground

Disclaimer- I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Sweet Misery."  The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network and the song belongs to Michelle Branch.

The story, however, is mine.

Special thanks – again – to darthelwig.  All this is pretty much her fault.

Rated R for objectionable language (and 'cause chapter 1 was dirty).

I do not advocate bigotry or homophobia in any way.  However, I'd have to be an idiot not to realize those things exist, and that's why they are depicted here.  If that or slash makes you uncomfortable, I'd advise you to leave now.

If anyone's interested, the Eddy quote is from "Momma's Little Ed," the one where he and Ed write fake sticky notes. (Though I believe he's said it in other ways in other episodes as well.)

Solid Ground

     Double D stared into the mirror.  He could no longer recognize his own reflection, and that scared him.

     _"I was lost…"_

     Whose eyes were those?  So red they looked like they were bleeding – no, they weren't his, they couldn't be his.  He didn't have a look like that.  He was never that… devastated.  That… _dead_.

     _"And you were found."_

     Usually when he was disturbed he ran for Eddy.  But in his heart he knew that Eddy couldn't help him with this.  Not even Eddy could make that boy in the mirror any less of a stranger.

     _"You seemed to stand on solid ground."_

     It was funny really.  Double D knew he was the designated 'smart one' of their particular trio, but when he was in doubt or in pain or just in need he ran straight to Eddy.  It would never even occur to him not to-

     Until now.

     And now who could he run to?

     _"I was weak…"_

     He needed someone, anyone.  Just a shoulder to lean on, a heart he could cry to.  Someone who could understand but not judge.

     He thought of Ed, but as much as he adored the 'loveable oaf' he knew Ed would not understand.  He would hurt, but he could not heal.  And hurting him was the very last thing in the world Double D was willing to do.

     _"And you were strong."_

     This he supposed was why people were always so leery of getting romantically involved with their friends.  When you dated your best friend, who did you talk to and get advice from when the beauty started to fade?

     He thought briefly of his parents.  What a laugh riot they were.  Parents?  They were more just the people who paid the bills every month.  Those sticky notes all around his house were all he ever really saw of his wayward folks ever since he could walk and talk without assistance.  Sometimes when they hadn't left notes in a while he'd write some for himself.  It never truly helped, but it never hurt, either.

     He realized now that the fake sticky notes hadn't been needed since Eddy became his lover.

     _"And me and my guitar, we strummed along."_

     But enough of this.  He hated staring into the mirror, but he'd been doing it for a reason.  Time to get to that reason.

     He reached into the medicine chest and pulled out his mother's small cache of makeup, one of the few things in the house that proved to him she had been a real woman once, before she and his father had become ghosts in his existence.  Nervously, he searched out what he was looking for, and held it up to the light.  Right color.  Of course.

     Slowly he began applying the cover-up to the bruise around his swollen eye.

     _"Sweet misery you cause me."_

     He knew why this had happened.  He could hear Eddy's voice in his head, hear Eddy saying, "it was Kevin's fault, as usual," but he knew that wasn't right.  None of this had been Kevin's fault.  Eddy just hated him so blindly that he couldn't see.

     _"That's what you called me."_

     Or maybe Eddy blamed him.  He usually did.  And, Double D had to admit, he usually let him.

     _"Sweet misery you cause me."_

     "But we're not kids anymore, Eddy," he whispered to the stranger in the mirror with the dying eyes.  "You were supposed to stop by now."

     _"I was blind…"_

     It was his own fault, thinking that slowly becoming young adults actually made any of them _adults_, thinking they could grow so easily.  Thinking _Eddy_ could grow so easily.  Eddy didn't want to grow, not where it counted.  He'd known that from the beginning.  How could he have forgotten?

     _"But oh, how you could see."_

     Eddy knew better.   He knew people.  That was something no book could ever really teach.  It was a gift, and one of the many things Double D loved about him was that he seemed so blissfully, remarkably unaware of it.

     _"You saw the beauty in everything, everything and me."_

     But what did Eddy love about him?  What did he see that Double D couldn't that kept him so enthralled?  Why was Eddy with him if he still saw them as they'd been when they were children?  For all the care he'd shown then, Double D had never been completely certain Eddy cared that much at all.

     _"I would cry…"_

     Unless Eddy still didn't care.  After all, the way he'd acted at the party-

     Double D shivered.  The memory of last night made his insides shrivel.  The laughing, the jeering-

     The ultimate betrayal of Eddy being the one responsible for his pain.

     _"And you would smile."_

     And to see Eddy laughing, and grinning at him even though his eyes looked sick, even though he so obviously didn't want to, but doing it because to not do it would make him less of a man in the views of the buffoons around them – that just killed him.

     _"You'd stay with me a little while."_

     Eddy had tried to comfort him after, though, hadn't he?  He'd followed him, and stolen a kiss that felt like paper, like an obligation.  But that had to be something.

     Didn't it?

     _"Sweet misery you cause me."_

     If only Kevin hadn't decided to improve upon the gay jokes they'd been throwing at him (Eddy, Double D's honest mind automatically supplied, Eddy'd been throwing at him!).  If only his way of improving on the joke hadn't been subtly flirting with a clueless Double D.  If only Double D hadn't been so clueless…

     _"That's what you called me."_

     He'd hurt Eddy, letting Kevin (of all people!) flirt with him.  But he was so new to this, he could never tell when someone was flirting or just being friendly…

     But he could tell when someone was angry.  And Eddy had been more than angry.

     Eddy had been furious.

     _But why with me?_ Double D thought, feeling suddenly hopeless.  _"Why were you furious with_ me_?"_

     _"Sweet misery you cause me."_

     He was remembering the yelling, now, so loud it hurt his ears even in his mind.  Eddy yelling at Kevin, Kevin sneering, he seemed to remember there was a lot of sneering involved.  And swear words that made Nazz turn positively pink, made her try to get the boys to shut up before Jimmy fainted from horror.  Double D didn't think they'd heard her; he was amazed to find that he had.

     _"And in my heart I see…"_

     And then Eddy whirling on him.  He couldn't really recall why – something Kevin had said had made Sarah squeal with indignation, and after more yelling from Eddy his best friend, his lover, his world, was suddenly glaring at him.

     _"…what you're doing to me."_

     Eddy spoke, called him a name.  Double D remembered blushing hotly, all the way down to his toes, before he remembered what Eddy had called him.

     "Fag."

     _"And in my heart I see…"_

     But Eddy of all people had known already what he was.  He hadn't been calling him a fag when he spoke.

     He'd been calling him a whore.

     _"…just how you wanted it to be."_

     Double D tried to defend himself, but when you had to speak in riddles to hide the truth what words could be used to make your lover understand?  He knew he'd stuttered, apologized – and that his apology had made Sarah run from the room in tears.  She thought he was apologizing for being gay, but he knew the truth wouldn't comfort her at all.

     It hadn't seemed to comfort Eddy either.

     _"Sweet misery."_

     He thought now that apologizing at all had been a mistake – to Kevin and the others it was an admission of one sort of guilt, to Eddy a guilt of a whole other kind.  But he couldn't curb his words – they fell out of his mouth half-formed, trying to stop the falling he could see in Eddy's eyes.  How innocent he was, how innocent and dumb – the falling would've stopped much sooner if he'd just kept quiet.

     _"Sweet misery you cause me."_

     When had the snap come, though?  One would think he would remember.  The break in Eddy's eyes, just before the pain flooding into his own from a punch delivered by his lover – what had caused that?

     Oh yes – he remembered now.

     He had.

     _"That's what you called me."_

     "It isn't what you think."  He'd said that, the stupidest line in the world.

     "It isn't what you think."

     _"Sweet misery you cause me."_

     Eddy just stood, looking down at him.  They could've been in bed for all the softness in his expression at that moment.

     If Double D hadn't already been doing it, that look would've made him cry.

     _"And in my heart I see…"_

     Nazz, the girl who'd always intimidated him not because he liked her but because he didn't and he knew he should, helped him up and took him home.  If she'd spoken to him, he couldn't remember it.

     He could've stayed there, at home, all night.  He could have.  But he hadn't.

     Instead, he'd gone to Eddy's, drawn the blinds, and waited.

     _"…what you're doing to me."_

     He should still be at Eddy's, but he'd come home.  He would not raid Eddy's mother's makeup, it was rude, but he needed to hide the visual proof of his own sin.

     He couldn't bear to look at it, to feel it on his face.  He'd messed up, letting Kevin put his hand on his arm, on his waist.  And he'd paid for it.

     _"And in my heart I see…"_

     Just as he deserved to.

     _"…just how you wanted it to be."_

     Oh, he was glad Ed hadn't been there, hadn't seen his utter humiliation, his mortification.  Ed had only been at the party for minutes before he left, saying that he wanted to get ready for the music to start.  Double D had tried to tell him that the stereo was already playing music, but he'd just given him a strange look and left.

     He'd thought he'd seen Ed outside Eddy's house that night when he was gazing out the window watching for Eddy, but he knew now that that was just wishful thinking.  If Ed had been there he would've come in, and though Double D was glad he'd missed the party he'd have welcomed Ed that night.  Anything to put some fire into the frozen wasteland he and Eddy had become.

     _"Sweet misery."_

     How cold it was now, being in Eddy's arms.  As cold as being alone.

     He gazed a little more intently at the stranger in the mirror.  Was that what Eddy saw when he looked at himself?  A hollow, echoing shell?  Or did he look and see the same old face, just a little older, a little more weathered?

     Or maybe he saw what Double D did when he looked with his eyes wide open.

     _"Sweet misery."_

     Maybe all he saw was pain.

     _Sweet misery."_

     And the worst part of it was, Double D couldn't tell anymore when it had stopped being okay for Eddy to hit him.  He just knew that what once would've simply irritated him or kind of hurt his feelings now broke his heart.  And that breaking shamed him.

     _"I was weak…"_

     A tiny voice in his mind begged him not to do this to himself, begged him to place the blame where it belonged.  But that voice had grown softer over the years, quieting a little more every time his parents forgot his birthday or his best friend Eddy blamed him for another of their failed scams.  By now the voice was a tiny bug in a huge world of thick, black guilt.  He could ignore it if he chose.

     He chose to now.

     _"And you were strong."_

     After all, what would listening to it get him?  If it wasn't his fault that his eye ached and his cheeks still burned with humiliation and his chest felt heavy with pain, whose fault was it?

     But he knew.  He remembered who'd teased him because the others already were and improved upon their teasing because that's what he did best.  He knew who'd hit him so hard he'd landed on the ground before it even got a chance to hurt.  He knew who'd felt betrayed and had thus betrayed him.

     But why, Eddy?  Why?

     _"And me and my guitar…"_

     But Double D knew why.  Because Eddy's reputation mattered more to him than anything or anyone-

     Even him.

     Shaking his head sadly, Double D picked up the compact he hadn't even realized he'd dropped and replaced it in its designated place, should his mother ever lose her mind and begin to wear makeup again.  When he had the cabinet door shut once more, his eyes caught on the boy in the mirror.

     He was crying, his eyes an even deeper red, his dark hair plastered to his flushed but somehow pale cheeks, spider-legs on pink snow.  He looked… glassy, somehow.  He looked like a corpse just fresh enough to still be thin flesh hanging off small, brittle bones.

     _"…we strummed along."_

     And Double D recognized him now.


	4. Chapter 4 Damaged Goods

I'm so tired of writing these.  But anyway…

Disclaimer – I don't own Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Man And Wife, The Latter (Damaged Goods)."  The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network and the song belongs to The Desaparecidos.

Rated R for sexual situations.  If you don't know by now, this is a slash story.

Anyway… thanks to darthelwig for the inspiration.

Also, I try to thank my reviewers through email, but some of them don't leave an address, so thank you to Layce74 (I didn't really think of Eddy as abusive, technically – to me, he's more _combustible_), Mina1 (you left such a beautiful review, containing so many compliments I can't respond to them all here, but I will say I'm glad you liked Ed's role – I'm very proud of how un-sick it came out), and Misty Summers (there is darkness.  It is here).

Now, on to the most important thing – the story.  Enjoy.  Peace, all.

Damaged Goods

     Eddy watched Double D out of the corner of his eye, studying, wondering.  It had been two weeks since the party, and though the bruise had healed, their relationship had not.  Eddy was starting to wonder if it ever would.

     _"I'm growing out my hair…"_

     Maybe he was wasting his time.  If Double D really wanted to give up, to leave, then maybe Eddy should just let him.

     _"Like it was when I was single."_

     But what would his life be like, then, without Double D in it?  With Double D not in it at all, since Eddy couldn't imagine him sticking around after the tragedy that was their romantic relationship?

     How had he let this happen, anyway?  It wasn't supposed to be like this.  But he'd had an awful fight with his parents about his grades, one that had led them to comparing him – in a less than stellar light – to his perfect and long-absent brother, and when Double D had comforted him he'd taken all the comfort Double D had been willing to give.

     It hadn't been much, that night.  Kisses that maddened him, a gentle hand on his back and another on his leg that made him want more, and a stolen caress beneath Double D's shirt that sent shivers down his spine even now.  But he'd gotten more since.  Much, much more.

     _"It was longer than I'd known you."_

     So many memories.  He didn't know what to do with them all.  And the newer ones, the ones that involved smooth hot skin and a sweet wet mouth – how did they fit in with all the others?  It had been so different when they were younger, when they were innocent.  He wouldn't go back, but sometimes it was tempting to wish that he could want to.

     _"I had no money then…"_

     He knew good ol' Sockhead didn't see it, but he _was_ a different person than he'd been then.  He still loved jawbreakers – he doubted he'd ever stop – but they were no longer the be-all and end-all of his life.

     He didn't even want to know what was.

     _"I had no worries then at all."_

     Such a simpler time, though he never would have thought so then.  What with the endless bad luck, the unrelenting Kankers, and the constant threat of people like Kevin and Sarah, he'd thought his life to be hopelessly complicated at the time.  But then, he'd been very young.

     _Yeah, like you're so old now,_ he thought.  _Just because you feel old doesn't mean you are._

     _"Such a high standard of living…" _

     He shot another surreptitious glance at Double D, who was slumped over at his desk, his shoulders rounded and his head lowered.  Eddy wanted to shake him, to wake him from this cold, to drag him kicking and screaming back into his life.

     But he didn't do anything.

     _"I just feel like I am dying."_

     This was ridiculous.  God, he wanted Double D so bad, wanted to pull his head back, pull off that stupid hat to reveal the hair he loved so much hidden beneath, and slide his lips over the exposed flesh of his throat.  He wanted all that so much…

     But he just sat on Double D's bed and died instead.

     _"I'd start an argument but you can barely even talk."_

     Never having been a patient person, he tried yelling at Double D only a week after the disastrous party, hoping that unmitigated and unprovoked anger would stun Double D into getting out what he needed to so they could move on.  All that happened was that he succeeded yet again in making Double D cry.

     _"There's good reason for your silence."_

     He knew he deserved this.  That was the worst part.  He deserved it, but the fact that Double D gave it to him made him want to scream with rage.  Where was the forgiveness, the understanding he'd grown so used to getting from Double D?  Or had he used it all up?

     _"Have to take care of some business."_

     This was pointless, utterly pointless.  Why was he even still here?  Maybe he should just leave and go visit Ed.

     Not that Ed seemed all that much better off, lately.  Just yesterday he'd broken down in tears and flung his arms around both of them, moaning something about music being gone.  Double D was concerned as well as confused, but Eddy found that, as much as he loved Ed, he didn't have the energy inside him to be concerned or confused about anything but his own life at the moment.

     Double D shifted in his chair, and Eddy's heart rose – and then fell when he said nothing.  But if Double D wanted quiet, he could give him quiet.  He could be the quietest broken man in the world.

     _"So I fix your plate and I stay out of the way."_

     Eddy yearned to take the few steps necessary that would get him off the bed and into Double D's arms.  He yearned to move.  But he couldn't seem to get himself anywhere.

     If Double D was frozen, then so was he.

     _"Will you stay like that forever?"_

     His body was ice.  Yes, that was it.  Because ice couldn't feel, and he didn't want to.  It wasn't quite the same, but it would have to do.

     And ice melted, eventually.  Double D had melted him once.  And now Double D was freezing him again.

     _"Right in front of your computer…"_

     He could almost feel himself turning cold, feel his teeth locking together.  Soon, it would be all over.  No more feelings.  No more pain.

     Better to be frozen solid than the puddle Double D had been turning him into.

     _"You'll look up one day…"_

     And then Double D looked up.  Looked at him.

     _"…but you won't recognize me."_

     Double D studied Eddy for the billionth time, as if staring into his lover's eyes or his face would provide him with the answers he sought.  He knew he should know better.

     But he had to try something, because he had to discover the truth.

     _"So you want to change."_

     Did Eddy love him?  Could he really?  Could love be hidden and dismissed and even mocked in public, and still be love?

     And moreover, was that the kind of love he wanted?

     _"Read a letter from a lawyer."_

     The whole cul-de-sac was buzzing about that stupid party and all its supposed revelations.  Double D found he couldn't care much.  So all the others knew he was gay - that was hardly a big surprise, was it?  He was so stereotypical it hadn't even surprised him much.

     And that gossip wasn't nearly so interesting to him as the truth.

     It had changed his life, though, he had to admit that much.  Sarah wouldn't even look at him, wouldn't acknowledge him when he greeted her, but that didn't surprise him, either.  Crushes could wound the heart even easier than love at times.

     As for the others, some snickered, some stared, but he avoided them all.  He'd wanted to apologize to Sarah, but she wouldn't let him, and as far as he was concerned that was all he owed to the kids of the cul-de-sac.

     _"Want to take me out to dinner."_

     Except Ed.  But Ed didn't understand the whispers, and so Double D was free to put off telling him.  Which he did, because when he finally told Ed the truth he wanted to be able to tell him all of it.

     _"You want to bury me under a mound of shopping bags."_

     He and Eddy managed to act halfway normal towards each other when in Ed's presence, though they'd already been getting a lot of practice at it, for they'd never told their big-hearted friend what they did together, what they were to each other.  Double D had managed the charade by pretending the lover who desired, devoured, and dominated him each night was a demon prince Ed and Eddy had never met.  The ruse shamed him, but not nearly so much as what he had inadvertently done.

     _"Like it'd really make a difference…"_

     Eddy sometimes seemed to have forgiven him.  A look here, a touch there – with the exception of that unfortunate and one-sided shouting match that had reduced him to helpless tears within seconds, Eddy was kinder to him now than he'd ever been.  Except perhaps when they were laying in bed at night, before it had all gone wrong, and Eddy would simply stroke his hand or place sweet little open-mouthed kisses on his chest, asking nothing, demanding nothing, denying nothing…

     Mentally he shook himself.  Yes, all seemed to be forgiven.

     But Double D just couldn't forgive himself.

     _"…or make up for your disinterest."_

     And Eddy… he couldn't forget how it felt to have Eddy's fist crashing into his face.  He'd already forgiven, but he could not forget.

       _  "I'm a bill you pay."_

     But was it right keeping Eddy here, tied to him, when he was so mired in all the things he couldn't do?  He studied Eddy's so-dear face, trying to commit his every cell to memory.  Maybe he should just let Eddy move on.

     _"I'm a contract you can't break."_

     Without even intending to he found himself on his feet.

     _"And it's like I'm underwater…"_

     Was he moving closer to Eddy?  It was hard to tell.  He was trying to, his feet were, but Eddy seemed so very far away…

     _"…or on an endless escalator…"_

     He was in front of Eddy now.  Eddy's eyes were very, very wide.  Double D was sure that Eddy had never looked more amazed, not even the first time Double D lay naked and vulnerable and wanting in his bed.

     Nor had Eddy ever before looked so beautiful.

     _"…I just go up and up but I don't ever reach the top."_

     Without knowing why or how Double D was suddenly reaching for Eddy, and letting himself get pulled down onto the lap he knew so well.  Clothing ripped and breaths caught and his hat was yanked off his head without him noticing.  This was all he wanted right now.  One last time before the end.  That was all.

     _"And it reads just like the Bible…"_

     Two weeks going without after months of being with caught up with them, and Double D found himself trembling and half-incoherent.  He was vaguely, almost innocently pleased when he realized that Eddy was trembling, too.

     It would be years, though, before he realized that the extra-salty taste on his tongue when he kissed Eddy was caused by their tears.

     _"…twenty centuries of scandal."_

     This was all much quicker and rougher than Double D was used to.  He knew that Eddy had always been very careful with him in bed, knew that their collective inexperience contributed to that, but still he was unprepared for the change he felt in his best friend.  Everything Eddy did felt desperate, like his tongue and hands and limbs were clinging roughly because that was the only way they knew how to cling and that was what he needed to do.

     Not that Double D blamed him.  He knew his fingernails were digging into Eddy's back, possibly deeply, probably painfully, but he couldn't stop himself.  God, he needed this so bad…

     _"Yeah, it all depends on how you interpret it."_

     Eddy pushed inside him with a small moan.  To Double D it sounded like a sob.

     In his ear Eddy whispered one small word.

     "Stay."

     _"The word is LOVE."_

     Double D's eyes went wide, and in the dark depths Eddy saw his answer.

     _"The word is LOSS."_

     Eddy bit his lip, but instead of speaking (what words were left?) he moved his hips, thrusting into Double D, who cried out and closed those amazing eyes of his.  Eddy wanted to tell him that he was beautiful, that the wanton portrait he made with his head thrown back and his lips parted slightly was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen, but words such as those didn't come easy to him even in the best of circumstances.  So instead he reached to stroke the silky skin of Double D's throat with reverent fingers.

     _"The words are DAMAGED GOODS…"_

     "Look at me," Eddy whispered.  "Look at me, Edd.  I want to see you."

     _"That's what I am."_

     Double D didn't want to, he knew he didn't deserve to, he didn't deserve any of this beauty, but he could not deny Eddy's direct request.

     He opened his eyes.

     _"A lifetime gets chalked up to an experience…"_

     Eddy looked in Double D's eyes, and thought of the recently healed bruise.  His insides twisted.

     _"Coincidence…"_

     Double D looked in Eddy's eyes, and thought of how he had accidentally betrayed him with his worst enemy.  His insides burned.

     _"We're chained to the events."_

     But Eddy kept thrusting, and Double D kept rocking, and it could've been almost normal.  It could've been.

     But when Double D closed his eyes again, Eddy let him.

     _"That's it."_

     Outside, Ed sat in a tree beside Double D's upstairs window and listened.  That song was all wrong, all twisted.  He knew Eddy and Double D had waited too long – now they couldn't make their music the way it should be.  They'd forgotten.

     And then finally, finally, it hit him, and he nearly fell out of his tree.  They hadn't forgotten their tune, they'd changed it, and he didn't like it at all.  If he hadn't been crying, he would've climbed in the window to tell them to change it back.

     After all, he didn't think they really wanted to be singing their swan song.


	5. Chapter 5 Underneath My Bones

Disclaimer – I don't own Ed, Edd N Eddy, the Cartoon Network does.

Rated R for stuff in other chapters.  This one's pretty PG.  But this is a slash story, if you haven't realized that by now.

Author's Note – I know this is a story of songfics, but this chapter could not be denied.  The poem is mine.  Regularly scheduled programming will resume shortly.

Underneath My Bones

     Double D was sitting at his desk, head buried in his hands.  His hat was off, thrown quite uncharacteristically onto his bed, where it lay like a discarded crown.  His hair usually bugged him, it was so long and... and _pretty_... but today he found he wanted to leave it down.  It gave him something to hide behind.

     He lifted his head and let his eyes drift to a single piece of white paper on his desk.  His own neat, tiny handwriting sprawled across his vision in curving trails of blue ink.

     He wasn't sure why he'd written what he had.  He was no poet.  And he would never give this poem or any other to his muse even if it was perfection incarnate.

     But he reread it anyway, not understanding at all why the words swam in his vision.

_I Didn't Want This_

_By Eddward_

_I didn't want this..._

_     To see it all end before my eyes_

_     To watch you fall from the sky_

_     To be scattered in the wind_

_     To be trapped in my own sin_

_     To hold you close and still be far_

_     To let us both down hard_

_     To give you up after letting you in_

_     To shove you away though you are my twin_

_          The grittier, dirtier part of me_

_          The part I always wanted to be_

_     To let you go and set you free_

_     To know you're never going to be with me_

_     To break your heart as I break my own_

_     To feel you sliding underneath my bones_

_     To give you up and never let you see_

_     Just what this is doing to me_

_     To let you down by not being there_

_     By not understanding just how much you care_

_          It's not as if it didn't show_

_          You love me too much for me not to know_

_     To be alone, to not be with you_

_     To let you see that I'm just a fool_

_I didn't want this_

_     I'll never say I didn't want you_

_     But I didn't want this_

     If only he could tell Eddy all this, if only he could apologize and beg forgiveness.  If only he could retreat from this pain back into the recesses of his mind and his memories, where it was safe and he was still warm.

     His head fell back to his hands, and he didn't understand at all why soon his hands were soaked.

     If only. 


	6. Chapter 6 After You're Gone

Disclaimer – I don't own Ed, Edd N Eddy or "You Were Meant For Me."  The Cartoon Network owns the Eds, Jewel owns the song.

Special thanks, as ever, to darthelwig, for the inspiration.

Rated R for no particular reason in this chapter.  Well, there is some swearing.  Very slashy, too, but I'm sure you already knew that.

If you're interested, the memory Eddy references took place in the episode called "Your Ed Here," the one where Kevin discovers Eddy's middle name.

After You're Gone

     _"I hear the clock; it's __six a.m.__"_

     Stupid alarm.  Eddy leaned up to slap the off button, but instead he knocked the clock to the floor, its wire yanking out of the wall.  The resulting crash was rather satisfying, almost making up for the fact that it had woken him up too early after he'd gotten too little sleep.

     Almost.

     _"I feel so far from where I've been."_

     A week had passed since that night in Double D's room.  It had been the longest, hardest seven days of Eddy's life.

     _"I got my eggs, I got my pancakes too."_

     He knew he had to get up soon, but he couldn't bear to make himself move.  He had so many things to do-

     And not one of them really mattered.

     _"I got my maple syrup..."_

     Everything in his life was coming together.  At the end of the summer he'd start college.  Today he'd be visiting the campus, learning the layout, maybe checking out the dorms.

     _"Everything but you."_

     He and Double D had been going to get a room together.  Somehow, though they'd never discussed it (or really anything since that night), he knew that wouldn't be happening now.

     _"I break the yolks..."_

     It was his own fault.  He'd broken everything.  But wasn't that what he was best at?  Breaking everything he touched?

     It was pure luck, a miracle even, that he hadn't broken Double D.

     _"I make a smiley face."_

     And he had to pretend, today, that everything was still alright, because against his oft-repeated wishes his mother was accompanying him on his trip.  She seemed to feel it was her duty.  He resented her for it-

     But then he thought of Double D's parents.

     Did they even realize that their brilliant son had sold himself way too short and enrolled in a community college instead of any of the Ivy League schools that had accepted him (and all of them had)?  Did they realize he was leaving, that he was old enough for college?

     Did they care?

     _"I kinda like it in my brand new place."_

     But why was he thinking about Double D right now?  It was time for him to focus on his own life, to salvage what he could from the wreck he'd become.

     _"Wipe the spots off of the mirror."_

     He was in his bathroom staring miserably at his own reflection when it hit him.  Double D had stayed in town for him.  He'd given up the best education he could have had (and Eddy knew how much education meant to him) – and it wasn't even the first time, either.  Whenever teachers or principals had wanted to advance him early he'd refused, citing his already shaky physical confidence as an excuse; but Eddy knew the real reason.  It was him.

     And Ed, yes.  But Double D had chosen this dinky college that surely couldn't challenge his intellect or teach him anything just so he could be with him.

     And Eddy hadn't even tried to stop him.

     _"Don't leave my keys in the door."_

     He walked out of his room, clean, dressed, and numb.  Sacrifices.  Double D was capable of a great many.  He was not.

     _"I never put wet towels on the floor anymore 'cause..."_

     He'd tried to give, to change, to compromise at least a little.  He was certainly cleaner, now, and neater than he'd ever been.  But it wasn't enough.  And it never had been.

     _"Dreams last so long..."_

     How had he ever thought they could work?  He really wasn't any good for Double D.  He knew that now.

     _"Even after you're gone."_

     But he still wished that things were different.  He wanted Double D in his arms at night, a silky-smooth, sweet-smelling, sweet-tasting bundle of passion and joy and heat.  He wanted Double D around during the day, chastising him and reasoning with him and softening it all with one look from those beautiful eyes of his.  He wanted Double D in his life again.

     _"I know that you love me..."_

     And Double D was missing him, too.  He knew it; he could tell.  One look in those pearly dark eyes and he could tell everything.

     _"And soon you will see..."_

     Double D couldn't stay away forever.  He just couldn't.  He'd break.  Sweet, forgiving Double D could not stay mad forever.

     _"You were meant for me."_

     But then, finally, it hit him-

     Was Double D's ceaseless, heartfelt, limitless forgiveness that asked for nothing in return truly a good thing?

     _"And I was meant for you."_

     He was in the front seat of the car, now, having convinced his mother to let him drive.  Ostensibly he drove so he could learn the route – what his mother didn't know was that he'd driven there many times before with Ed and Double D.  Ed would be in the back, rambling about how chickens should rule the world and playing little games with himself and chattering away happily.  Double D would be sitting in the passenger seat, talking or not as his mood dictated, but always smiling at him with that little smile that made Eddy feel like the world was coming undone around him but he would be fine.

     And Eddy would find himself thinking that if the car crashed at least they'd all die together.

     _"I called my momma..."_

     _Mom,_ he wanted to say, _I fell in love with my best friend.  You know, Eddward?  The one you always wanted me to be like?  Well, I'm in love with him.  But I hit him, too.  I betray him in public, just like when we were kids and I told everyone his middle name.  Only now we're older and he expects better.  Hell, he deserves better.  But I can't_ be _better.  So he left me, Mom.  He left me and I'm going crazy without him._

     Could he say that, any of that?  He looked over at her, watched her staring blindly at the road ahead of them.  He'd always thought her to be a very pretty woman, but right now she resembled nothing so much as a wall.

     _"She was out for a walk."_

     "Mom," he began haltingly.  It was a while before she glanced over at him, but even then she looked right through him; just as she always had.

     "Yes, dear?" she asked.  "Did you say something?"

     "Nothing, Mom."  Eddy's hands clenched on the wheel, whitening his knuckles as he gritted his teeth, blinking his eyes against the tears that threatened.  "It was nothing."

     _"Consoled a cup of coffee..."_

     He tried again at lunch, his hands wrapped unnecessarily tight around the vanilla milkshake in front of him.  His mouth was dry as sandpaper but he knew better than to take a sip.  Though the condensation on the glass felt heavenly on his hot fingers and shakes were always a favorite, he knew that he couldn't drink anything.  The lump in his throat was too big to swallow around.

     And ever since Double D had left him everything tasted like acid.

     _"But it didn't wanna talk."_

     A good diet, that, he supposed.  Lose Double D, lose all will to eat.  Or drink.  Or speak.

     "Mom," he finally managed.  She looked up from her half-eaten hamburger, and his stomach turned.  To escape the nausea he met her closed-off gaze-

     And froze.

     _"So I picked up the paper..."_

     A light had gone on in his head at the look in those eyes he knew so well.  It was not a pretty light, no, it wasn't pretty at all.

     Because he knew that she knew.

     _"It was more bad news."_

     His mother knew.  She knew about him and Double D.  And yet she'd never said a word.  No condemnation.  No questions.  No worries.

     No comfort.  No encouragement.  No _anything_ to let him know she knew and still cared.

     No hope.

     _"More hearts being broken..."_

     "Why, mother?" he asked, falling into the formal speech he'd picked up from Double D.  His mother pursued her lips (_recognizing the speech?_ he wondered.  _Recognizing and disapproving?  Betcha' wish now that you hadn't encouraged me to spend so much time with goody-two-shoes Eddward.  Betcha' won't compare me to him_ now), but for a long time she said nothing.  Nothing at all.

     _"Or people being used."_

     Finally she resumed eating.  Eddy waited, he tried to, but soon he'd had enough.  He opened his mouth, but she chose then to speak, to condemn them both with one single, harsh sentence, four words that destroyed a lifetime.

     "Don't tell your father."

     _"Put on my coat in the pouring rain."_

     His world crumbled around him, but he wasn't even surprised – it was a stack of cards he'd known had to fall.  His glue, his foundation, was gone, lost when he lost his temper.

     He tried to smile, to press his lips into service.  If he smiled it meant his walls were back up, he was protected.  And he needed to be protected, protected from the disgust and disappointment in his mother's eyes.

     From the look on her face it had worked.  He was smiling.

     _"I saw a movie; it just wasn't the same..."_

     He was pretending, he was an actor.  He was a liar.  He knew that, he'd always known that.

     He glared at his mother's back as they crossed the campus.  She'd made him into a liar.  It was one thing to be nervous about telling his folks, it was quite another to be informed by one that he must lie to the other.

     Oh, who was he kidding?  He was already a liar.  He'd lied to their friends, lied and made Double D alone out to be the different one, lied and lost his lover for it.

     _"'Cause it was happy..."_

     But he smiled when people passed him, he smiled at his mother, he smiled like he was alive.

     _"Oh, I was sad..."_

     His face was beginning to hurt.  His lips rebelled at the lie, tried to fall; his eyes rebelled at the lie, tried to cry; his very skin rebelled at the lie, tried to tremble.  He didn't allow any of it.

     _"And it made me miss you oh so bad..."_

     He wanted Double D.  God, it was so simple but so true.  He wanted Double D.  His best friend, his lover, his love.  The one person in the world who could see through all of his lies and love him anyway.

     It turned out that even his parents couldn't do that.

     _"'Cause dreams last so long..."_

     But why was he wasting his time thinking about that again?  It didn't get him anywhere.  He had to let it go.

     He had to let Double D go.

     _"Even after you're gone."_

     But he could remember everything about him so well.  The way his eyes would go big and moist if something kind was said to him (which was rare, too rare)... His hipbones, nature's perfect handholds, which fit his own hands so perfectly it was as if his palms and Double D's hips had once been connected... The rich beauty of the long hair he always inexplicably hid...

     Eddy could almost feel him, his sweet, supple warmth and his gentle, soothing, silk-skinned beauty.  And the memory of his feel was almost enough to hide the cold emanating from his mother.

     _"I know that you love me."_

     She got out at home and entered the house without looking back at him even once.  For a minute Eddy just stared after her.

     He thought again of Double D's parents.  Perhaps they weren't the only parents in the cul-de-sac who didn't give a damn about their son.

     _"And soon you will see..."_

     At least he knew, now, where he stood.  He could leave this place with a clean conscience.

     Well, almost clean.

     _"You were meant for me."_

     It figured, though, that his parents were different but still somehow the same as Double D's.  Not similar, but not a flip side, either – just like him and Double D.

     _"And I was meant for you."_

     Soulmates.  He knew that's what they were.  But even if it would save his life he doubted he could say it aloud.

     To save his relationship with Double D, however...

     _"I go about my business."_

     He went straight to his room, idly began looking through his record collection.  He put something on, sat down on his bed, and had listened to the whole thing when he realized he hadn't heard a word.

     _"I'm doin' fine."_

     The following silence was almost welcoming, almost comforting, and Eddy hated silence.  But the only voice he wanted to hear was Double D's, and that just wasn't going to happen.

     _"Besides what would I say if I had you on the line?"_

     There was nothing he could tell Double D, anyway, nothing he could do that would make this any better.  It was _over_.

     _"Same old story..."_

     He turned over onto his stomach, hugging a pillow to his chest, to his face.  He could almost smell Double D's special, oh-so-familiar scent.  It comforted him, turned him on, and made him ache.

     _"Not much to say..."_

     All of which annoyed him.  This was _over_, right?  So why wouldn't it end?

     _"Hearts are broken every day."_

     He got up to shower quickly, mechanically.  Why wouldn't this day – and his life – just end already?

     _"I brush my teeth..."_

     He stared into the mirror above his sink, and without really noticing he used his towel to wipe down the reflective surface that held him so captivated.  Double D still hated things that were messy-

     Which made Eddy wonder if maybe now Double D hated their former relationship.  Nothing in either of their lives had been messier than that.

     _"I put the cap back on."_

     He studied the mirror.  Clean.  Good.

     He noticed, then, what he was doing, but though it irritated him he had to smile, his first sincere smile all day.  If they were still together, Double D would've been so innocently pleased with him.

     _"I know you hate it when I leave the light on."_

     So many strange neuroses, had his precious Double D.  Always wanting to be clean, to be polite, to be perfect.  As if being perfect would fill a void in him, or give him something he lacked.

     _"I pick a book up..."_

     Being perfect hadn't gained him his parents' attention or affection – just their tacit approval.

     _"And then I turn the sheets down..."_

     Being perfect hadn't earned him the respect or the simple friendship of the other kids in the cul-de-sac; all he ever received for his troubles was their obvious, biting scorn – and sometimes even bruises.

     _"And then I take a deep breath..."_

     And being perfect certainly hadn't spared him any pain; even his own lover would not spare him that.  Perfection hadn't saved him.

     _"And a good look around."_

     As Eddy crawled back into bed, he found himself wondering what life was like for Double D.  He'd often wondered how Double D coped without him, _if_ Double D coped without him, but never once before had he wondered so _selflessly_.  This had nothing to do with him.  This was about Double D.

     _"Put on my pjs and hop into bed."_

     Was Double D alone now, in that big, empty house?  Was he lonely?  Did he tremble at night like he used to, before Eddy took to holding him close while they slept?  Did he cling and cling, and wake up to find he was clinging to a pillow?

     Was he suffering?  Eddy didn't really want to know but his brain wouldn't stop asking.  Was Double D suffering?

     _"I'm half-alive but I feel mostly dead."_

     Eddy was, but for the first time in his life his pain was not something he felt the need to pass on.  It could die with him, and welcome.

     _"I try and tell myself it'll all be all right."_

     But he really had to stop thinking about this.  Double D's pain was not something he could control or heal.  It was his fault but it wouldn't be his to fix.  Double D would just have to move on-

     _"I just shouldn't think anymore tonight, 'cause..."_

     Double D, moving on?  Finding someone else?  Inconceivable.  Impossible.

     Impending.

     _"Dreams last so long..."_

     But who?  Kevin?  Eddy sneered up at the darkness.  It better not be Kevin.  That was all he knew, all he could feel for a minute.  It had better not be Kevin.

     _"Even after you're gone."_

     But someone... Double D deserved to find someone.  He did not deserve to have to spend his life alone.

     _"I know that you love me..."_

     Eddy knew that after what he'd done to Double D he did deserve to be alone.  But he knew that that was something he just couldn't do.

     _"And soon you will see..."_

     It all came down to sacrifices.  Double D could make them.  Eddy could not.

     _"You were meant for me..."_

     So if Eddy couldn't have Double D...

     _"And I was meant for you."_

     He'd just have to have someone else.

     _"Yeah."_

     Nausea gripped him again.  It was all he could do to not retch where he lay.  He didn't want anyone else.

     _"You were meant for me."_

     But Double D didn't want him.

     _"And I was meant for you."_

     It burned.


	7. Chapter 7 Dirty Streets

Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Crucify."  The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, the song belongs to Tori Amos.

Thanks once more to darthelwig for the inspiration; without her this would've remained a one-shot and I would be a much happier person.

Rated R for somewhat graphic violence and naughty language (as well as sexual situations in earlier chapters).  A Warning – this chapter contains some very bigoted words.  I do not condone bigotry of any kind, which is one reason why it's portrayed here.  So never say you weren't warned.  And as I'm sure you know by now, this story is slash.

Unless I missed something, all the Ed/Eddy quotes in this one are actually mine.  Odd, isn't it?  The memory of Jimmy isn't mine, though; it took place in the episode called "If It Smells Like An Ed...", the one where the Eds are framed.  And please, I don't own the Eds but I do own the story, so no stealing, 'kay?  Many thanks.  Now, on to the tale.  Peace, all.

Dirty Streets

     It was going to rain.  Double D lay on the ground, staring up at the gray, cloudy sky, and he knew.  While he waited for the first fat, sparkling drops to touch his thirsting skin, he remembered how he'd gotten here.

     _"Every finger in the room is pointing at me."_

     Laughter.  That always came first.  All of them laughing, laughing at him, laughing as Kevin called him a fag and a queer and joked about the way he'd flirted with him at the party.  The party that had ruined his life, and Kevin _joked_ about it, like it was nothing, like it was _funny_.

     For a second, he finally fully understood why Eddy hated Kevin so very much.

     _"I wanna spit in their faces..."_

     And his disgust must've shown in his face, in his eyes.  Eddy had told him once, "Monobrow can barely read picture books and even _he_ can read your eyes, Double D."  Double D had been quietly flattered but politely disbelieving.  Now, with the way Kevin was looking at him, glaring at him, he knew Eddy had been right.  He was an open book-

     And Kevin was obviously not liking what he read on the first page.

     _"...then I get afraid of what that could bring."_

     But even though Double D was furious and hurting and fed up with the way he was being treated, manners and training and innate kindness won out.  Add on to that the fact that he was far from stupid, and there was absolutely no way he would give in to the rebellious, slightly vindictive turn of his usually pure thoughts.

     But he didn't have to, because Kevin already knew.

     _"I got a bowling ball in my stomach."_

     His nerves started clanging at the darkness in Kevin's gaze.  This was bad.  All his instincts told him that this was really, really bad.

     _"I got a desert in my mouth."_

     He wanted to talk, to stutter out his nervousness as he customarily did, but he couldn't speak.  Not that it mattered – he knew Kevin would not be deterred from his current path, whatever it might be.

     _"Figures that my courage would choose to sell out now."_

     As Kevin advanced on him, he was strangely glad that he couldn't form any words, for he knew he was perilously close to begging.  Something in Kevin's demeanor frightened him beyond rational thought.  He couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was, but whatever it was was dark, and dirty.

     _"I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets."_

     He glanced around quickly, searching out help, support.  Jonny wouldn't look at him, and turned Plank's face away.  Jimmy stared in open, wide-eyed awe, and it was impossible to tell whether he was shocked and horrified or simply perversely fascinated.  Rolf stood not far from Kevin, his wide mouth twisted as though words struggled to come out against his will.  He knew that none of the three would lift a finger in his defense.  For whatever their reasons, they all stood against him.

     In a sense, it was just him and Kevin alone in the lane, with him banking on Kevin's mercy to save him.

     Too bad Double D wasn't sure Kevin actually possessed any mercy.

     _"Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets."_

     He wondered where the girls were, why Jimmy was here without Sarah, why Kevin was here without Nazz.  He wondered why Kevin was studying him the way he was instead of just punching him.

     He wondered if Ed and Eddy, wherever they were, would hear him screaming.

     _"I've been raising up my hands..."_

     Kevin was speaking again, but though Double D heard him his words skittered by before he could catch their meaning.  Not that it mattered, really.  All the words Kevin said to him were superimposed with Eddy's voice.  When Kevin called him a fag Double D heard Eddy calling him a fag but really calling him a whore.  Nothing Kevin said could cause more pain than that.

     _"Drive another nail in."_

     But it seemed Kevin was more than willing to try.  His words weren't garnering a response of any kind, so he quickly moved on to another tactic.

     _"Just what God needs..."_

     Wearing a cocksure leer, Kevin reached behind Double D to cup his butt in both his hands and pull him closer.  "Like that, dork?" he hissed.

     _"One more victim."_

     Double D thought of Eddy.  How hurt Eddy had been when he let Kevin put his hands on him in much less intimate places.

     _"Why do we crucify ourselves?"_

     How if he'd just paid more attention at the party a month ago, if he'd just known more, he would've politely asked Kevin to stop.

     _"Every day."_

     How betrayed Eddy must've felt, how he was the one responsible for Eddy's pain.

     _"I crucify myself."_

     He thought of his own exacting standards for perfection, and how he never seemed to live up to them.

     _"Nothing I do is good enough for you."_

     He thought of all his flaws, his weaknesses, of all the times he'd screwed up or failed or lost his courage.

     _"Crucify myself."_

     He thought of every time he felt he had ever let someone else down.

     _"Every day."_

     He thought of how brutal his life could be, how brutal he could be to himself.  How Eddy, the person he had betrayed the most, seemed to be the only one who could see that.

     _"I crucify myself."_

     He thought about how Eddy used to smile whenever he entered his room.  (_Two weeks gone,_ his mind supplied.  _Two weeks gone_.)

     _"My heart is sick of being..."_

     He thought about how much he really, really hated having Kevin's hands on him.

     _"I said my heart is sick of being in chains."_

     Double D drew back his hand and punched Kevin as hard as he possibly could.

     _"Oh... Chains."_

     To his utter surprise he was released, and Kevin stumbled backwards, holding his jaw.  But within moments Kevin had recovered, and was glaring daggers at him.

     _"Got a kick for a dog beggin' for love."_

     Double D knew he should run, he knew Kevin was going to beat him, but instead of his feet preparing to flee he felt his mouth opening to apologize.  He never got a chance to deliver his apology, however; he was grabbed from behind, his arms wrenched painfully before they were pinned to his sides by a rough, unbreakable grip.

     _"I gotta have my suffering so that I can have my cross."_

     He knew who held him so still, who was holding him in place for a now-smiling Kevin.  He heard sneakered feet pounding pavement, and knew that Jonny was doing what he should've done and running.  He wouldn't get help, but at least he wouldn't be watching.  He and Plank would be somewhere safe when the true evil began, and Double D was absurdly grateful for that.

     _"I know a cat named Easter..."_

     Kevin stood in front of him, and with his bloody lip it was impossible to discern if he was leering at him lustily or sneering at him disgustedly.  Double D was betting on the latter, and his mind prepared itself for the coming pain by disconnecting, seeking out a safer thing to think about.

     Ed.  He was safe.  Despite his blundering and the outrageous situations he brought along with him, Double D always felt safe in his warm, loveable presence.

     _"He says, 'will you ever learn?...'"_

     Ed had told him once, "you can't be nothin' if you got somethin,' Double D," and though Double D doubted he'd meant it as something deep and meaningful Double D had always found comfort in those remembered words.  For a boy whose sense of self-worth often teetered on the edge of despair due to extreme loneliness, the thought that simply having something to call his own (his friends, for instance, or even his own undeniable intelligence) gave him worth was a surprising comfort.

     _"'You're just an empty cage girl if you kill the bird.'"_

     But he'd lost it all, lost everything that truly mattered; he'd given it all up when he gave up Eddy.  What were you, what did you become, if you had something, something beautiful and special and precious and rare, and you gave it away?

     _"I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets."_

     The first punch caught him off-guard.  His body snapped back into Rolf's as Kevin's fist connected with his belly, knocking the breath out of him.

     _"Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets."_

     In his mind he called and called for Eddy.  Whenever he was suffering he always called out to Eddy.  It was an instinct that went deeper than any other, deeper than his blood and bones and skin.

     _"I've been raising up my hands..."_

     He tried to raise his arms to protect himself, but Rolf's grip on his upper arms prevented him from doing so.  His struggles caused the strangest look to enter Kevin's eyes, but even without the distraction of being terrified and beaten he wouldn't have been able to identify what that look meant.

     _"Drive another nail in."_

     "Kevin," he gasped.  "_Don't._  Please-"

     His words made Kevin's eyes darken, and Double D thought he'd even flinched.  But then Kevin's fist smashed into his stomach yet again.

     _"Got enough guilt to start my own religion."_

     The most intolerable part was, Double D felt responsible for this, for all of this.  If he hadn't let Kevin flirt with him at the graduation party, if he hadn't left Eddy (_two weeks_, the obscene countdown in his mind reminded him, _two weeks gone_), if he hadn't been dumb enough to hit Kevin, none of this would've happened, none of it would be happening at all.

     _"Why do we crucify ourselves?"_

     Part of him wanted to scream, to cry, to beg for leniency, but he didn't have the air.

     _"Every day."_

     Part of him wanted to whisper, to sob, to beg for forgiveness, but he hadn't the air for that, either.

     _"I crucify myself."_

     Absolutely all of him wanted to whimper, to weep, to be back in Eddy's arms being held and treasured and made breathless in only the best way, the way only Eddy could render him breathless.

     _"Nothing I do is good enough for you."_

     But he was here, now, and getting to Eddy's room was an impossible dream, a whimsical fantasy he couldn't have indulged even if he was completely whole and healthy and free.

     And as he gazed with half-blinded eyes at Kevin, he knew those were not words he would ever take lightly again.

     _"Crucify myself."_

     Another punch to the gut.  If Rolf hadn't been holding him he knew he would've doubled over from the pain.  As it was, all he could do was gasp for air and pray, Rolf's calloused fingers digging into his sensitive flesh almost as painful as Kevin's repeated punches.

     _"Every day."_

     He couldn't look at Kevin anymore, couldn't bear seeing the condemnation and bitter victory in the eyes of someone he'd always thought would never go quite this far, so he turned his face away.  His desperate gaze landed on Jimmy.

     _"I crucify myself."_

     Those blue eyes stared in his with not even a hint of embarrassment or shame – or sympathy.  With Jimmy's odd sense of vengeance (Double D had forgiven but _never_ forgotten Jimmy selling him and his friends out to the Kanker sisters in retaliation for a _wedgie_ only delivered by one of them), doubtless he thought Double D deserved all the punishment he was receiving at Kevin's hands.

     _"My heart is sick of being..."_

     Double D watched him now, watched the unforgiving eyes, the utter indifference in the face of his overwhelming pain.  He watched and watched until he saw what he needed to see.

     Jimmy's pale lips curved upwards into the smallest of smiles.

     _"I said my heart is sick of being in chains."_

     Something inside Double D snapped painlessly.  He turned new eyes back to Kevin.

     _"Oh... chains."_

     When Kevin moved to hit him again Double D tilted his head back, aimed-

     And managed to spit a disturbing combination of blood and saliva into Kevin's eyes.

     _"Please be..."_

     Kevin stopped, shocked.  Even Rolf gasped, his fingers digging ever deeper.

     And Jimmy, the person Double D had really wanted to spit on, met his challenging gaze with a broad, smug leer of a smile.

     _"Save me..."_

     Double D smiled, helplessly, a panicked little grin.  Now he was going to get it.  Kevin was going to kill him.

     He hoped Eddy showed up to his funeral.

     _"I cry."_

     Some of his spit began dripping down Kevin's cheeks, leaving obscene little perversions of tear-tracks of crystal and crimson on his flushed skin.  Finally, Kevin's eyes glittered so darkly that Double D's aching guts quivered with fear, and with a vicious sneer Kevin began wiping at his eyes.

     _"Looking for a savior in these dirty streets."_

     Once he was clean enough Kevin leaned in uncomfortably close to Double D, leaving scant space between their faces.  Staring directly in Double D's eyes he whispered menacingly, "I hope you enjoyed that, Double Dweeb."

     _"Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets."_

     Double D quailed beneath the force of his fury.  He had just enough time to wonder how much Kevin would hurt him when a fist smashed into his tender flesh again.

     _"I've been raising up my hands..."_

     And again.

     _"Drive another nail in."_

     And again.

     _"Where are those angels..."_

     Unaware that he was doing it aloud, the pain caused Double D to scream for Ed and Eddy.

     But they didn't come.

     _"...when you need them?"_

     Kevin hit him again, and Double D retched uncontrollably, spitting pure crimson blood onto the ground, splattering his own shoes and Kevin's.

     _"Why do we crucify ourselves?"_

     Some drops had spattered on Kevin's hand, and he paused to wipe them off on his green shirt.  Double D barely noticed; his vision kept blurring, warping.  He knew he might pass out soon, but he was afraid of what would happen to him if he did.

     _"Every day."_

     The coppery taste of blood in his mouth made him nauseous, and the nausea made him cough up even more blood.  It was not a cycle Double D saw ending well.

     _"I crucify myself."_

     _I deserve this_, he thought bitterly.  _Only it should be Eddy here hitting me, not Kevin._

     He gulped, closed his eyes briefly to hold in tears.  _Oh Eddy_. 

     _"Nothing I do is good enough for you."_

     But Eddy would never do this to him, no matter how badly he'd screwed up.  Eddy might hit him in anger, might hurt him in rage, but this he would never do.  He'd never go this far.

     _"Crucify myself."_

     This was too far.  Did Kevin even realize what he was doing?  He had to not know, to be too angry to be aware.

     _"Every day."_

     "P-please," Double D rasped, drops of blood pooling in the corners of his mouth.  "_Please-_"

     _"I crucify myself."_

     He didn't think Kevin would reply.  But he stepped even closer and grabbed Double D's shirt.  _At least it's already red_, Double D's dazed brain thought numbly.  _It's so hard to get out bloodstains_. 

     _"My heart is sick of being..."_

     "I used to think you might be alright if you got away from Dork and especially Dorky," Kevin hissed directly into his face.  "But it turns out you're the biggest Dork of 'em all."

     _"I said my heart is sick of being in chains."_

     No need to ask Kevin why; Double D knew what made him the 'biggest dork.'  That odd need for rebellion stirred in him for the third and final time.  He steadied himself, drew in all the strength he'd need to say what he had to without faltering.  Very softly he spoke.

     _"Oh... chains."_

     "Did you know, Kevin, that it's the biggest homophobes who turn out to be the biggest closeted homosexuals?"

     _"Why do we..."_

     Impact.

     _"Chains..."_

     Double D slammed back into Rolf, choking on his own blood and a dire need for oxygen.

     _"Crucify ourselves."_

     He could feel someone smiling at him, at his pain.  When he could think again, he wished Jimmy would go away.

     _"Every day."_

     Rolf said something, but the ringing in Double D's head was too loud for him to catch a word.  Later he would come to believe that Rolf had asked Kevin to stop, because even though he could feel Kevin's rage he did not get hit again...  Not immediately.

     _"Chains..."_

     His eyes were rolling.  He couldn't seem to stop them.  Focusing hurt, but when Kevin roughly grabbed his chin and wrenched his head around he forced himself to look straight into Kevin's dark eyes, just as he so obviously wanted.

     _"In chains..."_

     "You listen to me, Eddward," Kevin growled into his face, his hot breath feeling oddly nice against Double D's heated, aching skin.  "I am no faggot.  And if you _ever_ call me one again..."

     _"Never going back again..."_

     He'd trailed off, but even though Double D felt light-headed and faint he knew what Kevin left unsaid.  It was a good thing that Kevin gripped his jaw so tightly, because Double D was torn between nodding his understanding – and laughing.

     _"To crucify myself again you know..."_

     Just for good measure – or perhaps to further drive home his point – Kevin slugged him in the stomach with one tightly clenched fist one last time.

     _"Never going back again..."_

     Rolf let him go, and without his support Double D slumped bonelessly to the ground.

     _"To crucify myself."_

     Remembering had helped, brought his swimming mind back into some semblance of focus.  He stared up at the sky, watching as its tears began to fall.

     Double D stayed lying down on the ground as the crystal drops fell all around him in a slowly accelerating pace.  Finally he licked a single raindrop off his bloody lip; it tasted like blood, his blood, yet it was almost fresh, almost sweet...  He murmured to himself.

     _"Every day."_

     "I knew it would rain."


	8. Chapter 8 Wanting

Disclaimer – I don't own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "All Of This" – the Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, the song belongs to Blink 182 & Robert Smith (my personal idol).  Rated R for sexual situations, foul language, and violence in other chapters.  Say it with me now – a slash story.  Clear?

Thanks once more to darthelwig for the inspiration, and for helping me with a very important flavor...

On to the story.  Peace, all.

Wanting

     Two weeks gone.  Double D had been two weeks gone.

     _"With all of this I know now..."_

     Outside it was raining; it had been for a while.  But inside Eddy's room there was only heat.

     _"Everything inside of my head..."_

     He moved over the body in his bed, hips pistoning, lips kissing, tongue darting out to lick sweaty, hot skin.  Beneath him, his lover cried out, legs locking around his hips and back arching up off the bed.  Eddy grabbed the sharp hipbones, pushing his lover down into the mattress as he listened almost uninterestedly to the moans and sighs and gasps, even little screams, that echoed up at him.

     _"It all just goes to show how..."_

     "E-Eddy," a sweet voice moaned.  "Oh, God, _Eddy_."

     _"Nothing I know changes me at all."_

     If that had been the voice he wanted to hear he would've come just from hearing those low, husky moans.  As it was, his hips just kept moving, moving.

     _"Again..."_

     Arms wrapped around him, fingers clenched in the skin of his back.  He remembered fingernails from two weeks ago, fingers painfully clutching in the most pleasurable way as a different voice let out choking, almost suffering moans in his ears.

     _"I wait for this to change instead..."_

     He'd moved on as best he could, in the best way he knew how.  So soon he assumed the pain would just have to end, because he had moved on.

     But it just stayed.  A full week of moving on already behind him, and the pain just stayed.

     _"To tear the world in two..."_

     One final deep thrust, and the body beneath his convulsed in orgasm, bringing him to completion with the rhythmic shuddering of the tight heat surrounding him.  He stayed leaning on his arms as the orgasm faded, not wanting to crush his lover, but Nazz reached up, pulling him down to her for a long, deep kiss.

     _"Another night with her..."_

     She'd come to him three days ago, to talk, offering a shoulder to cry on because she thought he and Double D had had a falling out over his best friend's dubious sexuality.  If she only knew.

     What he didn't know was why she had come to him and not Double D.  Surely dealing with an impromptu coming out party would be far more traumatic than any of the things she knew he'd gone through.

     But she'd come to him, she'd kissed him, and now, again, she was here, beneath him.  And that was what he'd always wanted, right?  Nazz, in his arms, in his bed, beautiful and naked and aroused and willing, he had no idea why she was so willing – but she was there, and that was what he wanted, wasn't it?  _She_ was what he'd always wanted.

     _"But I'm always wanting you."_

     Only she wasn't.  Not anymore.  Her appeal to him now was the same as any old crush – it felt... almost quaint.  Like reading a yearbook decades old, he could look back, he could remember – but the depth of the feeling had gone.  Some part of him, the 'angry straight guy' he knew he carried around, bristled at this loss, but that was just too bad.

     She dressed, not hastily but still quickly, seemingly embarrassed now that their labors were over.  She always was.  Eddy assumed it meant that _he_ embarrassed her, that sleeping with him shamed her, but he didn't really care to know.  He didn't really care at all.

     But he opened his door for her, stepped outside with her, and was about to give her a goodbye kiss on the cheek when he heard her call out a hesitant greeting.

     "Hi Double D!"

     _"Use me Holly..."_

     Eddy froze, then finally turned.  Double D was staring at him.

     _"Come on and use me."_

     Double D was holding himself funny, standing in the rain with both arms wrapped around his middle.  He was soaked to the marrow, his clothes sticking to him like a second skin, ever-present hat drooping on his head.  He'd probably just been crossing Eddy's backyard to get around the cul-de-sac (though why when there were easier ways Eddy wasn't sure), but now he stood stock-still, staring at Eddy and Nazz with ever-widening eyes.

     _"We know where we go."_

     Eddy watched Double D watching him, feeling strangely embarrassed and ashamed, as though he'd been caught cheating.  But he hadn't been cheating – he and Double D were long over.  (_Two weeks gone_, his mind reminded him.  _Two weeks gone._) 

     So why did Double D look so... crestfallen?

     _"Use me Holly..."_

     For Double D, it was as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach; he was falling, but he wasn't going anywhere.  He was suddenly heartbroken, it was evident on his face, but if asked he wouldn't have been able to properly explain why, even in the unlikely event that he had wanted to.

     Nazz, sensing something but not knowing what it was (and cherishing her ignorance), muttered a goodbye to Eddy and left, knowing only that he and Double D obviously needed time alone.  Not that it would've mattered had she stayed; both her departure and her very presence had gone unnoticed.  Nazz had ceased to exist for both boys once they locked eyes.

     _"Come on and use me."_

     Eddy wanted to say something, to invite Double D in, to at least ask why his former lover looked so pale and drawn.  But as they stared, as Eddy watched Double D's heart continue to crack behind his eyes, all he could do was flee.

     He went back into his room and closed the door.

     _"We go where we know."_

     Outside, Double D stood very still as the rain pounded down on him.  He didn't know it, but after leaning back against the door to take a few stabilizing breaths (it was amazing how shaky seeing someone he'd seen every day for the majority of his life could make him) Eddy peeked out his window to watch him – and what he saw disturbed him deeply.

     Double D, high-strung, health-conscious Double D, just stood in the rain watching his house.  He was shivering, shaking in a way that suggested far more than the cold was getting to him, but even though he risked sickness he simply stood, and stared.  Eddy wondered if he was crying.

     But before he could work up the nerve to even consider going outside again, he saw Double D's slender shoulders lift and fall in a soft sigh.  Then he left.

     _"With all of this I feel now..."_

     It was still raining hours later.  Though it was past midnight, Eddy couldn't stay confined in his room any longer.  He walked to Ed's, deliberately not looking around the cul-de-sac.  He'd wondered all day where the big lug was, half-hoping he'd been with Double D; but if Double D's sad, solo appearance in his backyard was any indication, he hadn't been.

     He could see flickering light pooling on the ground by Ed's basement window, and as Eddy leaned down to peer in he suddenly knew what had been occupying Ed this day.

     _"Everything inside of my heart..."_

     Ed was sitting on his dirty old armchair, Sarah curled in his lap.  The television was on, and Eddy could vaguely hear the familiar screams and shrieks of a low-budget monster movie playing.  Stunned, he sat back on his heels.

     Ed and Sarah, bonding?  It was... inconceivable.

     But as he gave it more thought he was forced to revise his opinion, because he thought he knew why Sarah was here.

     After all, after getting his heart broken by Double D, there was nothing Eddy would've liked more than to be comforted by Ed.

     _"It all just seems to be how..."_

     He left Ed to his sister, turning away with a small sigh.  Against his will he glanced at Double D's house.  His bedroom light was on.  Eddy couldn't help himself; he stared, entranced.

     _"Nothing I feel pulls at me at all."_

     Double D appeared briefly, as though summoned by Eddy's blatant stare.  His arms were still wrapped around his belly, and though the light streaming from behind him cast him into shadows Eddy found himself thinking that even Double D's silhouette was strangely graceful... strangely beautiful.

     _"Again..."_

     He pulled himself out of his adoring thoughts, slowly and deliberately turning away from the window.  He'd never get over this if he kept allowing himself to slip back into it.

     _"I wait for this..."_

     _Two weeks and a day_, he woke in the morning thinking.  _Two weeks and a day gone._

     _"...to pull apart..."_

     When he went to Ed's later on Double D was already there, looking just as pale and almost sickly as the day before.  In fact, as Eddy subtly scrutinized him in sullen silence, he thought perhaps Double D looked even worse.  Eddy wanted to chastise him for not taking better care of himself, it was on his lips to do so, but he knew his protective instincts (when had he even developed those?  No need to ask why) had to be curbed.  It wasn't his right anymore.

     But he wanted to say, to speak, to hold and understand.  He wanted.

     _"...to break my time in two..."_

     They couldn't keep doing this, spending time together for Ed's sake.  Or at least, Eddy couldn't.  It was just too much to bear.

     With a reluctant sigh he stood to leave, having been there for all of five minutes.  Double D's eyes rose from the floor to his face, guilt raging in the darkness of his gaze.  Eddy wanted to speak, to assuage the obvious self-blame, but his tongue was glued to the roof of his abruptly dry mouth.  Even Ed's evident distress couldn't loosen his lips.

     He spun on his heel and left.  Without a word.

     _"Another night with her..."_

     It was easy to find a warm body for his bed that night; too easy.  One might think the nameless boy in his room, in his arms, actually cared for him, with how easy it was to bed him.

     One would be wrong.

     _"But I'm always wanting you."_

     _Two weeks and two days_.  He rolled over, sleepily annoyed by the feel of unknown flesh rubbing against his own.  This skin was too rough, too hairy.  Double D's skin was always smooth as silk, as milk, and to his mortification he'd remained nearly hairless since adolescence...

     Suddenly Eddy was wide awake and viciously hungry – but not for food.

     _"Use me Holly..."_

     They stayed in bed most of the day, then Eddy walked the still-nameless young man out to his car so he could drive him back to the club he'd picked him up at.  As he was unlocking the car door he felt eyes boring into his back, and he turned to look.

     The ghost that forever haunted him was standing all the way across the otherwise deserted cul-de-sac, by his front door, staring at him.

     _"Come on and use me."_

     Eddy hurriedly got in the car, feeling sick.  Why did Double D have to see him like this?  And why did it make him feel so guilty when he did?

     _"We know where we go."_

     On the ride home a new emotion rose in Eddy – anger.  If Double D wanted him he shouldn't have _left_ him.  And what he _really_ shouldn't be doing was staring at Eddy all the time with those wide, innocent eyes of his, eyes that could cut much deeper than any knife.

     _"Use me Holly..."_

     Damn Double D for leaving, for getting involved with him at all.

     _"Come on and use me."_

     And damn Double D's beautiful eyes, damn them to hell.

     _"We go where we know."_

     And especially he damned himself, for still wishing Double D had stayed.

     _"She's all I need."_

     Nazz came to visit him again that night.  He didn't ask why, he didn't question; he didn't care to.  And this time he avoided the always awkward preliminaries by simply kissing her once she closed his door.  Time to get Double D out of his head and heart once and for all.

     _"She's all I dream."_

     He kissed down her neck, left little patches of wetness on her sleek skin.  She tasted like peaches.  God, he hated peaches.  He preferred a light, fresh honeysuckle...

     _"She's all I'm always wanting."_

     He blew lightly on the skin his lips had made wet, and she shivered violently.  Double D had always liked that, but he responded by trembling just a little, always holding back, always trying to stay in control, to not embarrass himself...

     _"She's all I need."_

     Best not to think about all that, though.  In fact, best not to think at all.

     He stripped off Nazz's upper clothing, not stopping until she was completely topless.  He bent his head to her breasts, trying his best not to think, not to notice how these nipples were a dusky pink, not the pale rose he so dearly loved...

     _"She's all I dream."_

     Why was he having such a hard time anyway?  Nazz had always been his dream girl, and she was here, and for whatever her unknown reasons she was willing.  So why was making love to her so hard?

     _"She's all..."_

     She was moaning, writhing, clutching at his back as he licked, sucked, kissed down her belly.  He tried to care, to be moved.

     _"I'm always wanting you."_

     As he began undoing her pants he wondered what he was doing here.

     _"I'm always wanting you."_

     _Two weeks, three days gone_.  Eddy stared blindly up at his ceiling, feeling Nazz's sleeping body shift beside him.  _Two weeks, three days gone_.

     _"I'm always wanting you."_

     He saw Double D again that day, at Nazz's annual Fourth of July celebration.  They stared at each other across the yard, loud rock music blaring in their ears, the irony of seeing each other again at another of Nazz's parties lost on neither.

     _"Use me Holly."_

     Eddy was surprised Double D had even shown up to this party – after the tragedy that was the last one, in Double D's place he wouldn't have had the guts to show up to another so soon (or possibly ever again).

     But then, Double D had always had more courage than he did.

     _"Come on and use me."_

     Look at the way Double D had handled being kind of 'out'ed – he'd been more worried about Eddy than himself, been concerned for Eddy's feelings at the expense of his reputation.  He'd stood firm in the face of the scorn of all their friends, not even looking their way to acknowledge their disdain; his gaze never left Eddy even when he looked away.

     _"We know where we go."_

     But then, he never really saw anyone besides Eddy-

     And, of course, Ed.

     _"Use me Holly."_

     Double D looked so... beautiful.  He was standing off to the side, obviously apart, obviously uncomfortable, and though he still looked pale, and fragile as glass, and almost sick, somehow he still remained heartbreakingly lovely.

     _"Come on and use me."_

     Even Nazz, openly acknowledged goddess of the cul-de-sac, could not hold a candle to Double D's beauty.  It drew Eddy in, so much so that when Double D went inside Nazz's house to use her restroom, Eddy waited a covert few minutes, then followed him.

     _"We go where we know."_

     He entered the bathroom without knocking, pausing inside the door.  Double D was at the sink, hat tossed haphazardly on the closed toilet seat, dark hair dangling around him.  For a moment, he just kept splashing water on his face, though by the stiffening of his spine Eddy knew Double D was aware of his presence.

     Then he looked up, his eyes locking with Eddy's in the mirror above the sink.

     Without a word Eddy closed the door and locked it.

     _"She's all I need."_

     Eddy was on Double D within seconds.  Lips sought, and found, and kissed eagerly, hungrily, desperately.

     _"She's all I dream."_

     Eddy felt hands tugging at the zipper of his pants, knew his own fingers were yanking Double D's down, no time for finesse, no time for the yes-no-maybe of their usual sexual encounters, no time for anything but mouths and sweat and skin.

     _"She's all I'm always wanting."_

     Double D's hat got knocked to the floor as he was laid none-too-gently across the toilet lid.  The angle was wrong, everything was uncomfortable, not even Eddy was short enough (particularly after his late adolescent growth spurt) to make this work – but he spread his legs, ignoring the ache in his abdomen, and readied himself despite knowing all that.

     _"She's all I need."_

     Somehow Eddy had the presence of mind to hurriedly lube up with liquid soap before pulling Double D's legs onto his shoulders and entering him.

     _"She's all I dream."_

     Eddy couldn't breathe without gasping, couldn't think without feeling and wondering and marveling.  And beneath him, Double D was making the strangest sounds, half-pleasure, half-pain.

     But when Eddy made a move to pull out, Double D's slender arms wrapped around him, dragged him closer.

     _"She's all..."_

     The amount of clothes still between them was absolutely loathsome.  Eddy wanted to feel Double D's smooth-sweet skin sliding along his, wanted to at least have a lick of one pink nipple.

     But when his hand went to the hem of Double D's red shirt, he was caught between two sweaty palms that lifted his hand to open, wet lips for a series of teasing kisses.

     _"I'm always wanting you."_

     With all the lovers he'd had since deciding to force himself to move on, nothing had felt as good as this, no one's touch and breath and graceful movement had driven him to the brink faster.

     _"At all..."_

     Eddy was trying to hold on, to find some sort of hold in the wild, dizzying haze of pleasure so he could wait for Double D.  But as his heat-glazed eyes passed over Double D's pleasure-wracked face, he thought maybe he wouldn't have to hold back for very long.

     _"Again..."_

     Denied the feel of his skin, Eddy leaned in to plant hot, demanding kisses all over Double D's flushed face and long, slender neck.  He was so enraptured that he mistook the jerk when he pressed his body against sensitive, aching flesh as a silent plea for more, and he thrust even deeper with a small moan.

     _"I wait for this..."_

     Double D arched up, stifling a cry behind his teeth as he came.  Eddy followed seconds later, teeth clamping down on the honeysuckle skin of his lover's shoulder in an uncontrollable reaction to the fierce waves of ecstasy rolling through his body.

     _"To fill the hole..."_

     They dressed in silence, Eddy's heart stopping when Double D gracefully bent to retrieve his hat from the floor.  Washing up together, Eddy watched Double D in the mirror, noting the bruised eyelids, the inability to meet his gaze.  Something was obviously wrong, something more than their fractured relationship, though neither of them acknowledged it aloud.  It made Eddy wonder.  Had he hurt Double D so badly that Double D couldn't trust him anymore, couldn't confide in him?  Had he screwed up so badly that their friendship was ruined?  Was it really _all_ over, all of it?

     _"To shake the sky in two."_

     As he watched Double D kindly but firmly disregard Ed's pleading and leave the party, he tried to tell himself that it might not all be his fault, that Double D might not just be upset because of him.

     But he didn't believe it.

     _"Another night with her..."_

     He watched Nazz flirt with Kevin, watched with dull eyes as she shot a surreptitious, studying glance his way.  Did she think to make him jealous?  The boy who would've reacted that way over her was long dead, while the man that boy had become could only offer up a vague disgust at her lame attempt to test her own power over him.  Double D would _never_ do something like that, would never deliberately mess with his emotions just to evaluate his own standing...

     But Double D would never really be with him again, either.

     _"I'm always wanting you."_

     He was under no delusions about that – hurried sex in a friend's bathroom altered nothing, saved nothing.  All it had done was remind Eddy of all he had lost.

     He turned away from Nazz and Kevin, completely missing the concerned, begging look Ed was giving him with his large, puppy-dog eyes.  If Nazz was going to be that way, fine – he could find anyone to warm his bed that night, it didn't really matter who it was.  He thought he'd look for a boy, though; a boy with long, dark, silky hair and skin that tasted of honeysuckle...

     _"Another night with her..."_

     Ed watched Eddy go, as he had watched Double D go, and in that moment he very nearly stumbled upon the truth.  But he got distracted, he so easily got distracted, and the answer eluded him once more.

     But there was someone else, someone the answer did not elude, someone who watched as Ed watched, someone who knew as Ed did not.

     And that someone silently, secretly seethed.

     _"But I'm always wanting you."_


	9. Chapter 9 Never Look Back

Disclaimer – I don't own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "The Boys Of Summer." The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, the song to The Ataris (and, I guess, to Don Henley, who did the original). Rated R for sexual situations and a whole bunch of stuff in the other chapters (for full warnings, see those chapters). Say it with me now – this is a slash story. If you don't know that by this time, you have more mental difficulties than Ed does, and reading this won't help you.

Thanks once more to darthelwig for the inspiration, and for pointing out to me that this song fit Edd and Eddy so very well. I hope you like what I did with it, dart.

For the curious, the memory Double D references took place in "Hot Buttered Ed," the one where the Eds scheme to get better spots by the creek when Kevin steals theirs.

Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

Never Look Back

_Two weeks, four days gone_. Double D was taking the long way around the cul-de-sac, just enjoying his walk. It was good to be able to walk and breathe at the same time again, and no one else was around – most likely they were all still sleeping off the after-effects of Nazz's blow-out yesterday.

_"Nobody on the road..."_

He stopped underneath the shade of the small hill that overlooked the cul-de-sac's 'beach,' breathing in the morning air. In his mind, three boys plotted their way into this very spot; he could hear their laughter, their bickering, the love behind their irritation.

_"Nobody on the beach."_

He breathed in again, slowly, and the boys were gone.

_"I feel it in the air."_

He knelt down, running his hands over the gritty sand. He could almost feel their innocence still in this place.

Almost.

_"The summer's out of reach."_

So much had changed, for all of them. Not just Ed, Eddy, and himself, but the other kids as well. Though they'd turned on him, turned him out, he found he bore them no ill will. He'd loved them all for far too long.

_"Empty lake..."_

They didn't love him. He knew that now. But that... was inconsequential.

_"Empty streets..."_

He rose and began the walk back to his house, still gingerly holding his stomach. Four days since the beating, and though he _could_ walk and breathe again, it still hurt something incredibly fierce. He'd done what he could with his medical supplies, but that really hadn't been enough. He just had to live with the pain-

But it wasn't as if that was new to him.

_"The sun goes down alone."_

Instead of going to his house Double D found his feet carrying him to Eddy's. He'd made that trek so many times – it felt natural to do it now.

It was all he could do to exert enough control that he stayed across the street.

_"I'm drivin' by your house..."_

Just by looking at the house he knew Eddy wasn't there. Some part of him knew that Eddy hadn't spent last night within the confines of the cul-de-sac, had instead been in the home and arms of a new one-night-stand, but Double D very politely told that annoyingly logical voice to shut up and leave him alone.

_"...though I know you're not home."_

He could see Eddy leaving that house, just last summer. He could see him so clearly...

_"But I can see you..."_

He closed his eyes to bring the picture of Eddy into sharper focus. This, at last, brought him a semblance of peace.

_"Your brown skin shinin' in the sun."_

Eddy, not yet ruffled by life or Ed, wearing his best summer duds and his favorite sunglasses while looking cool, calm, and collected – and sexy. To Double D, Eddy's insufferable arrogance had become, over the years, incredibly sexy.

_"You got your hair combed back..."_

Double D's mouth was a desert, barren and dry. But his lips were surprisingly wet...

God, he wanted Eddy so bad...

_"...and your sunglasses on, baby."_

Eddy's car drove up; Double D recognized the roar of the engine and stepped into the shadows by Rolf's house before he could be seen. Even before Eddy got out Double D's eyes lasered in on him. How he missed being in that car with that boy, driving anywhere, driving nowhere, or even just steaming up the backseat while parked on a deserted stretch of road...

_"And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong..."_

Someone else – quite a few someones – shared those hot, intimate moments now. But it didn't matter. Double D knew without a doubt that nothing Eddy experienced now could compare with what they'd once shared.

_"After the boys of summer have gone."_

Even their first night together had been incomparable. Double D remembered being nervous, a tightly wound bundle of nerves, until Eddy smiled at him.

_"I never will forget those nights."_

How beautiful every touch had been then, beautiful and oddly unexpected. They'd been so unsure of themselves, of their place in the other's arms and beds, back then, but it had just rendered every kiss and caress a little more special.

_"I wonder if it was a dream."_

It was so hard to believe all of this had really happened. But when he rubbed up his arms he felt the bite mark Eddy had left on his shoulder in the heat of passion – and smiled to himself. It had all been real. Definitely real.

_"Remember how you made me crazy?"_

All those nights, learning and living, letting Eddy learn all the secrets of his body as he'd already learned all the secrets of his heart and soul – he nearly moaned with the memories of hot, slick, silk skin and gentle yet somehow rough and desperate hands running all over his sensitive body...

_"Remember how I made you scream?"_

And the body he'd been allowed to explore to his heart's content... Not skinny like his own, but to his eyes, even more beautiful by far... There was a sweet spot just underneath Eddy's jawline that, when tenderly licked, kissed, or sucked, drove him mad with desire, and as such it was one of Double D's favorite spots upon which to lavish attention... He missed it. He missed everything.

_"Now I don't understand what happened to our love..."_

He could not understand how he and Eddy had ended up like this – alone, apart. But as he snuck across the street to Eddy's house, one lone fact remained certain-

He was still head-over-heels in love with his best friend.

_"But babe, I'm gonna get you back."_

Something had snapped in Double D the day of the beating – and surprisingly enough, it hadn't been a rib. No, what had broken was his resolve. He remembered all his well-thought-out reasons for leaving-

He just no longer cared.

_"I'm gonna show you what I'm made of."_

But just because _his_ mind had changed that didn't mean he could just waltz back in to Eddy's life. Eddy might not forgive him, might not want him-

Might not love him.

_"I can see you..."_

In all the time Double D had been lost in his own thoughts, Eddy had gone into his house. Some of the others were out in the street now, but Double D cowered in the shadows cast by the house itself, safe from their prying, judgmental eyes, and waited.

_"Your brown skin shinin' in the sun."_

Finally, finally, Eddy came back outside, just as Double D had known he would. Eddy never really had been one for alone time...

Unless said alone time involved a willing, naked body to be 'alone' with...

_"I see you walkin' real slow..."_

Eddy's jaunty strut and cocky, oddly friendly grin warmed Double D's cold insides in all kinds of ways.

_"...and you're smilin' at everyone."_

Double D watched intently as Eddy smiled carefully and emotionlessly at Nazz as he passed her. His meticulously controlled and modulated expression gave away nothing, but Double D wasn't fooled – Eddy must care about her. He'd liked her – loved her? – for too long for him not to.

_"I can tell you my love for you will still be strong..."_

But if Double D had to compete with her for Eddy's affection, he would try. He would undoubtedly fail – who could compete with the beautiful, irresistible Nazz and win? Certainly not _him_ – but he would still try. Eddy was worth it.

_"After the boys of summer have gone."_

But what a cruel joke this was, like some sort of sick, unwanted twist of karma. He'd resented being Eddy's dirty little secret, and so Eddy ended up becoming Nazz's. It was a perverse situation, to say the least.

_"Out on the road today..."_

He watched Eddy walking away, towards the small beach, and found himself in the odd position of being utterly furious with Nazz. How could anyone be lucky enough to share Eddy's bed and not be proud?

_"I saw a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac."_

Nazz watched Eddy leave while Double D studied her. She looked slightly put out, but not nearly as crushed as he would've been if Eddy had looked at him so coldly.

For the first time ever, Double D decided that Nazz was a fool.

_"A little voice inside my head said..."_

As he snuck after Eddy, careful to remain unseen by anyone, he tried to ignore the whining voice of reason that was again trying to rear its ugly, unwelcome head.

_"'Don't look back.'"_

_You can't go back_, was its insidious whisper. _You ended it, and now it's all over_.

_"'You can never look back.'"_

_He won't want you._

Double D tried to ignore it, to push it away.

_He won't want you._

_"I thought I knew what love was..."_

To think he'd once believed he was intelligent, at least intelligent enough and mature enough to handle a relationship. What did science and learning teach you about love? Considering his home life, it was only natural he'd screwed his relationship with Eddy up so badly – he'd probably known less that was right about love than anyone with even half his I.Q.

_"What did I know?"_

But he couldn't let this guilt and self-flagellation, no matter how deserved, break him. His relationship with Eddy might be over, but that didn't mean he had to let it end.

_"Those days are gone forever..."_

He wanted Eddy back...

_"I should just let them go but..."_

And it was about time he did something about that.

_"I can see you..."_

He watched from a short, safe distance away as Eddy settled on the ground in their once-coveted spot by the creek. How beautiful and tragic Eddy looked, backlit by the slowly fading sun, with the water glowing magically behind him. Double D had been going to approach him, had been steeling himself to do so ever since his utter failure to talk to him when they were in Nazz's bathroom. He'd been too nervous and constrained by the party and the general atmosphere to broach the subject of their dead relationship then; he was too distracted to do it now.

_"Your brown skin shinin' in the sun."_

So he watched Eddy glow, and he didn't say anything at all.

_"You got that top pulled down..."_

It was getting dark, and perhaps that contributed to him not noticing Nazz until she was practically on top of Eddy. And before he could adjust or prepare, she was lowering herself into Eddy's lap and Eddy was taking off her tanktop, her undershirt.

_"...and that radio on, baby."_

Their moans reached his ears even as far away as he was. Eddy's voice taunted him, made him cringe inside. Nausea gripped him, and suddenly his bruises were throbbing painfully all over again.

_"And I can tell you..."_

He couldn't talk to him now. He couldn't say anything, now.

_"My love for you will still be strong..."_

He tried to tell himself that whatever Eddy did with Nazz didn't matter, wouldn't change anything, couldn't mean more than any other one-night-stand.

But he couldn't make himself believe it.

_"After the boys of summer have gone."_

On unsteady legs he forced himself to turn away.

_"I can see you..."_

He could almost hear the young boy he'd once been crying at this foul corruption of his private memories.

What he would never realize was that what he'd heard had been real – he'd been listening to his own sobbing.

_"Your brown skin shinin' in the sun."_

His instincts kept him walking in the shadows, but he wasn't noticing a thing. All he could see in his mind's eye was Nazz's long, slender fingers curling in Eddy's hair, Eddy's lips on her shoulder. Double D's bitten shoulder pulsated pleasurably, in sympathy, reminding him of all he had lost.

_"You got that hair slicked back..."_

Even through his pain he hoped Eddy and Nazz thought to be careful. A pregnancy in this stage of their lives would be-

Why was he allowing himself to care? They were both adults, capable of making their own choices and their own mistakes. If Nazz ended up pregnant, it wouldn't affect his life at all.

_"...and those Wayfarers on, baby."_

But it would. Despite it all, he cared about Nazz, and she was a clerk in a sporting goods store – how could she support a child? And Eddy-

Eddy was just beginning his life. He was starting college, moving out, leaving here – a baby would end it all.

And more importantly to Double D at the moment, a baby would mean Nazz had won.

_"I can tell you..."_

He would lose Eddy, to a baby, no doubt about that-

He didn't realize he'd reached his own house until he found his hand wrapping around his bedroom doorknob. With the turn of the knob he told himself, he _forced_ himself, to drop this pointless, depressing train of thought. Whatever happened would happen, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He went into his bedroom, closed the door-

_"My love for you will still be strong..."_

And stopped dead in his tracks.

_"After the boys of summer have gone."_

"Pardon me, but - what're _you_ doing here?"


	10. Chapter 10 Losing You Beneath My Skin

Disclaimer – I don't own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Underneath."  The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, the song belongs to Hanson.  Rated R for stuff that all happens in other chapters.  A slash story.

Thanks, once more, to darthelwig for the inspiration.

There are lots of things in this chapter that were heavily inspired/influenced by the show, but the only title I'm giving here is for the memory; it comes from "Stop, Look, and Ed," the one where Ed & Eddy drive Double D crazy by refusing to obey the rules.

Losing You (Beneath My Skin)

     At first, Ed was sure he was still dreaming.  The sweet weight resting on his chest was just part of a dream, and he could ignore it.  Relish it, but ignore it.

_     "Waking up this morning..."_

     But for a dream it was making the sleeveless undershirt he always slept in awfully wet.  He decided to open his eyes and see if he could get this dream to dry up a bit.

     _"Thinking this can't be real."_

     He blinked rapidly, trying in vain to understand his new vision, for he saw Double D's dark head resting upon his chest, his eyes large and red and wet.  He looked very small.

     _"But they say there is nothing love can't heal."_

     Gingerly he poked Double D's arm.  It felt real enough.  "Double D...?" he whispered, only to see Double D bury his face in his neck, hiding from his gaze.

     _"Why don't you come on down..."_

     "Are you alright, Double D?" he asked.  The body above his quivered sharply, and excruciatingly slowly he realized that Double D had been trembling this whole time.  Maybe he was cold?

     He moved to pull Double D closer, and to his surprise, when his arm wrapped around his best friend Double D jerked away with a small, wordless scream.

     _"So you can feel what I feel."_

     Ed did not understand.  This wasn't new to him – there was much that he did not understand, particularly where Double D was concerned.  But this felt... different, somehow.  He knew that what his mind was failing to grasp was of dire importance, but he could never have articulated such a feeling.  And he certainly could not understand where it came from.

     If asked, though, he would've said that it was the glimpse of Double D's eyes that had done it.  Something was so very wrong in there.

     _"Sitting all alone in this place..."_

     Double D sat up, pale hands clasping nervously in his lap.  His hat was nowhere to be seen; instead, his long hair fell in tangled strands around his face, shielding him.  Ed might've told him he looked pretty if he didn't look so scary.

     _"Even though we're here face to face."_

     Ed tried to be gentle, but he had to see.  He took Double D's chin in his large hand and turned his friend's face to his.

     But whatever he was looking for amongst all that pain could not be found, not by him.

     _"There is nothing gone..."_

     Part of Ed's brain, a fairly large part, was still off in his dream world, chasing chickens and eating heaping bowls of Chunky Puffs.  The rest of him was consumed with his wordless, confused concern.

     _"But there's something wrong."_

     He wanted Double D to explain, even though Double D's explanations never made sense to him.  Still, he could listen, and he often thought that it helped Double D to have someone just do something as simple as that.

     But Double D, though Ed still grasped his face, wouldn't even meet his eyes.

     _"Can't you see..."_

     "Double D...?" he repeated cluelessly, and was rewarded by the sight of Double D's helpless tears progressing to full-blown weeping.

     _"That I'm stuck here underneath."_

     Ed's gentle heart tore at the sight.  He'd never been able to set aside his empathy, particularly when his best friends were involved, so – completely forgetting the earlier scream and general panic this had caused – he sat up just so he could pull Double D into his arms.

     _"And you're making it hard to breathe."_

     When had Double D gotten so frail?  Holding him was like holding someone who was deathly ill – one became convinced that if one held too tightly one would shatter the precious bundle into a billion tiny, beautiful, brilliant pieces that one could not save.

     But Double D let himself be held this time, and so that was what Ed did.

     _"Take a look around and tell me what you see."_

     Very gently Ed began running his fingers through Double D's sweaty, slightly tangled hair, a new and novel experience.  He'd never before been able to touch Double D's hair – he'd only ever seen it down once prior to this – and it was rather... nice.  Silky, despite the surprising snarls.  Sweet-smelling in a light, not overpowering kind of way.  Very pleasant to touch.

     But why did his touch seem to make Double D cry harder?

     _"You'll find me underneath."_

     The fog was trying to overtake his mind, to make him think of monster movies and chickens and things he actually _understood_.  But he struggled against it, wanting to help Double D, to comfort, to _grasp_.

     _"Underneath."_

     After a few helpless, hopeless minutes Double D pulled away, not even bothering to wipe at his still crying eyes.  Without meaning to Ed repeated uncertainly, "Double D...?"  His best friend's eyes shut briefly, a look of obvious pain on his face, then he sighed, deep and soft.  His hands fluttered nervously in the air, butterflies with broken wings.

     _"I know what to say..."_

     For the first time since sneaking his way through Ed's window and into his bed, Double D wanted to speak.  But he just couldn't.

     _"...but don't know where to begin."_

     Something about the look in those sad, sweet eyes pulled at Ed in a way he could not understand.

     _"The fear of losing you beneath my skin."_

     "You have to tell me, Double D," Ed blurted, the sentence yanked from him in a worried blur.  With none of the confidence he normally would've had when giving such a reassurance, he added, "it will make you feel all better."

     Even through his tears the look Double D shot him was patently, patiently disbelieving.

     _"Is there resolution for this pain that I'm in?"_

     Just when Ed thought it would never happen, Double D's mouth finally opened.

     _"Sitting all alone in this place..."_

     But Ed's triumph was short-lived.  Even if Double D hadn't been whispering practically underneath his breath Ed would not have understood a word he said.

     _"Even though we're here face to face."_

     No, that wasn't entirely accurate; he understood a few words, sprinkled here and there in a formless pattern he could never hope to comprehend.

     But Double D kept talking, and crying, and his hands kept weaving pale, unsteady streaks in the air.

     _"There is nothing gone..."_

     And Ed just kept watching, and listening, and trying.

_     "...but there's something wrong."_

     One understood word kept being repeated: 'forced.'  It was known to Ed, but he couldn't grasp what Double D meant by it.  Before he could stop himself – not that he would've thought to do so until sometime the next day – he interrupted.

     "Forced?"

     _"Can't you see..."_

     Double D's pretty eyes were very wide, very hurt.  His lower lip trembled as he studied Ed's curious face.  He sighed again.

     _"...that I'm stuck here underneath."_

     He tried, again, to explain, while Ed tried, again, to grasp.  But what should've been obvious simply escaped him.

     And for the first time ever, Ed knew his lack of understanding was quietly frustrating Double D.  His best friend's face kept falling, falling, falling in a way that made Ed's own eyes fill with helpless, hot tears.

     Also for the first time, Ed cursed himself for being dumb.

     _"And you're making it hard to breathe."_

     After ten wasted minutes, Double D seemed to give up.  His butterfly hands landed on his knees, clutching, then going slack.  Ed stared for a moment at the hem of Double D's purple shorts, which had ridden up, exposing one delicate pale thigh-

     And a bruise almost the same shade of violent violet as Double D's shorts.

     Tentatively Ed reached out, touching it with one gentle fingertip, entranced.

     _"Take a look around..."_

     Double D cried out, quickly stifling the sound with his hand.  Ed looked up, met that frantic, shamed gaze, and felt the first glimmer of comprehension splutter to life within him.

     _"And tell me what you see."_

     Ed leaned in very close, his face barely inches from the offending purple flesh.  Double D's breathing had quickened, but he stayed silent, letting Ed look his fill.

     Ed's eyes rose from Double D's leg to his red shirt.  Right in front of his nose there was a rip he hadn't noticed before-

     And under that, more purple.

     _"You'll find me..."_

     With no warning whatsoever Ed lifted Double D's shirt.

     _"Underneath."_

     Double D sucked in a harsh breath in order to suck back an earsplitting scream - but Ed didn't notice.  All he could see was the crisscrossing of bruises, both new and obviously faded, all over the pale, scratched, and _bitten_ skin of Double D's slender chest; even the fog had dissipated some in the wake of this new, disturbing stimuli.

     _"It's gonna find me..."_

     Ed removed Double D's shirt completely, receiving no help and no hindrance from his suddenly inert best friend.  If he were anyone else – say, Eddy – he would've known that Double D was so still because if he let himself do or say anything he would panic, and scream and fight, so great was his unstoppable, newly instinctive fear.

     But Ed was Ed, and he did not know.

_     "Underneath."_

     "You have changed colors," Ed whispered, reaching out to touch the lightest of the bruises displayed before him.  He was gentle, but Double D flinched from his questing, concerned, reverent fingers nevertheless.

     They hurt him.  The bruises hurt him.  This Ed grasped.  So he did what his mother did when he came to her with some small pain.

     He kissed a bruise to make it better.

     And Double D promptly fell off the bed.

     _"If only you could feel what I dream..."_

     Sweet.  That was what it was to Ed, what anything involving Double D would always be.  Sweet.

     And that's what he would dream about when next he slept.  Not the confusion, not the pain-

     But the sweet.

     _"Maybe you could hear what I mean."_

     Double D was staring up at him from his place on the dirty, sticky floor with broken eyes.

     Ed wanted to explain, to take the fear from the pearly orbs he gazed into, but no words formed in his head.  He could not speak, could not justify what he'd done or even comprehend why he should have to.

     But Double D kept looking at him, dawn-light streaming in the window overhead painting his cheeks in pink.

     _"There is nothing gone..."_

     After a few more minutes of uncomprehending staring it finally occurred to Ed to ask, "did I hurt you, Double D?"  The sincerity and utter innocence behind those words must've gotten through Double D's pain, for he stared a moment at Ed's trusting, trustworthy face; and only then did the look of miserable betrayal begin to slowly fade.

     But though Double D shook his head slightly, he made no move to get back on the bed.

_     "But there's something missing..."_

     Ed held out his hand.  Double D simply stared at it, for the longest time.

     _"Can't you see..."_

     He placed his hand in Ed's.  For a second, Ed just stayed where he was, feeling the soft, warm palm engulfed by his own much larger one.  Protectiveness rose in him, pulled at him, called to him, begged him to avenge Double D, to heal him.

     Unable to do any of those things, Ed pulled Double D up and into his lap.

     _"That I'm stuck here..."_

     Slender arms wrapped around his neck, a dark head burrowed gently into his shoulder.  Ed cuddled Double D close, feeling strangely wistful.

     _"Underneath."_

     Hot tears were sliding down Ed's exposed skin, soaking into his shirt.  He wanted to make Double D stop crying, because every tear caused something in his chest to tighten and throb painfully.  Double D's hurt hurt like it was his own-

     And he didn't even know what it was.

     _"And you're making it hard to breathe."_

     He wished Eddy were there.  Eddy always knew what to do – and even if his path wasn't the right one, at least he was never at a loss as to which one to take.

     He wished Double D were capable of explaining himself in words he could understand – or that he himself were more capable of comprehending Double D's pretty, intricate speech.

     He wished this really was a dream.

     And more than anything he wished he understood.

     _"Take a look around..."_

     "There, there," Ed tried to soothe, awkwardly patting Double D's back.  "It is all right..."

     He trailed off when Double D pulled back a little, finally meeting his gaze.

     _"And tell me what you see."_

     Gingerly Ed reached out, brushing tangled strands of hair from Double D's ravaged eyes.  A fond, compassionate look passed over Double D's face as he gazed at Ed, but the tiny, tender smile that usually accompanied such a look was gone.

     _"You'll find me..."_

     As Ed continued to stare, Double D finally whispered something he understood, something that had obviously been bothering the fragile boy in his lap.

     "He stole my hat."

     _"Underneath."_

     The ache in Ed's chest was growing worse – Double D's incurable sadness was like a poison, slowly devouring them both.  He could think of a thousand or so toxins in his comics that had similar effects, but he couldn't imagine any of them feeling worse than this.

     _"Cause I'm stuck here underneath,"_

     He brushed more unruly locks away from Double D's eyes, frowning to himself.  Weren't people supposed to be ugly when they cried?  Maybe it was just the uncharacteristic loss of his stolen hat that made Double D look so pretty in his pain.

_     "And you're making it hard to breathe."_

     Ed was trying, he was trying really hard to think of a way to comfort besides the words and hugs that just weren't working.  There was nothing he wouldn't do for his friends, but what had he not tried?

     _"Take a look around..."_

     One thing occurred to him, but it was so small...  It had always comforted him, though, when his mother did it...

     That this one small thing had nearly made things worse just minutes before didn't even cross his mind.

     _"And tell me what you see."_

     Ed had aimed for his cheek, but Double D moved his head at the exact wrong moment (ironically enough, in an attempt to see what Ed was about to do)–

     And Ed's soft lips pressed against his.

     _"You'll find me..."_

     Sweet.  Always sweet.  Honeysuckle sweet.

     But despite the melting sweetness this was not what Ed had intended.  When the shock faded, he pulled back.

     And left Double D blinking owlishly up at him, his beautiful eyes unreadable.

     _"Underneath."_

     In the shocked stillness, both boys heard a familiar, strangled sound, and turned instinctively towards it.

     Eddy stood there, framed by the doorway in the early morning darkness, glaring a death glare at them both as tears fell from his eyes.

     _"Underneath."_

     Before Ed or Double D could say a word Eddy's lips curved upwards into a mockery of a smile.

     "I'm happy for you both," he growled, making Double D flinch.

     Then Eddy stalked out, while Ed stared after him in confusion - and Double D burst into a round of fresh tears.

     _"Underneath."_


	11. Chapter 11 Worth Breaking

Disclaimer – I don't own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "How You Remind Me." The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, the song to Nickelback. Rated R for all kinds of adult situations, including but not limited to foul language in this chapter. Very, very slash.

Thanks, as ever, to darthelwig for the inspiration. Also, thanks to all my friends and reviewers for their continual support of this and my other stories. Without you, I wouldn't – well, I probably _would_ still write, but I wouldn't feel so good about it. 'lol'

The memory in this one is mine, by the way. But anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

Worth Breaking

by Ghost Helwig

Eddy stomped through the junkyard, eyes blinded by unshed tears, heart pounding out an erratic, staccato rhythm in his chest. He should've seen this coming. No matter that this was like being blindsided by a tornado – he still should've seen this coming.

_"Never made it as a wise man..."_

Who else would Double D want but Ed? The one person in the world who'd never hurt him...

Eddy's fingers dug deep into his palms, nearly drawing blood.

Ed had never hurt Double D...

Not like he had.

_"I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing."_

For all that he'd once been the one who scammed the whole cul-de-sac, it seemed he was the one who'd been scammed.

_"Tired of living like a blind man..."_

How could he not have known how Double D truly felt? To see him there in the dim dawn, sitting in Ed's lap, wrapped around him, shirtless and hatless and being gently kissed-

How could he not have seen that coming?

_"I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling."_

He could hear their approach, hear Ed's feet pounding the ground, hear Double D's labored breathing. He could've fled, or hid, or any number of things.

Instead he stood, his back to them, and waited.

_"And this is how you remind me."_

They stopped a scant few feet from him. Eddy could feel their eyes on his back like pinpricks. He fervently wished that he'd fled instead of staying, and confronting.

_"This is how you remind me of what I really am."_

He turned, and stared. Ed was still in his underwear, his undershirt a little wet and rumpled, but otherwise he looked much as he always had. But though Double D had put his red shirt back on he was still without his hat, and the effect was jarring. Eddy was only used to seeing his hair down when they were in bed and he was twining it around his fingers; the fact that he'd had it flowing free when in Ed's arms just brought his betrayal crashing home.

Eddy wanted to glare, but he was afraid that if he looked at Double D too long the impact of his glare would be ruined by his tears.

_"This is how you remind me of what I really am."_

Standing there as dawn slowly brightened around him and his two best friends, Double D felt horribly, inescapably alone.

And then Eddy spoke, saying words he never thought he'd ever hear.

_"It's not like you to say 'sorry'..."_

"I guess I should've known, huh? You and Ed – you were always close, you always got each other better than I got either of you."

_"I was waiting on a different story."_

"I just... I thought maybe you'd come around, come back." Eddy laughed, bitterly, mirthlessly, not noticing how both Ed and Double D flinched at the sound.

_"This time I'm mistaken..."_

"But what do I know, right?" Eddy chuckled again, and the sound was like dry leaves. "I guess you found a way to move on, after all."

_"For handing you a heart worth breaking."_

Very softly, tenderly, Eddy whispered.

"He'll be good for you, Eddward."

_"And I've been wrong..."_

Shock had stilled his tongue up 'til then, but a pained scream, almost a spasm, was welling inside Double D's chest. It had to be released.

"No!"

_"I've been down..."_

Now it was Eddy and Ed who flinched. Double D, more sensitive and observant than Eddy, noticed, and had the grace to look abashed before he went rushing on in a half-terrified voice.

"It isn't what you think, Eddy-" A snort of disbelief from Eddy cut him off. Blushing furiously with the memory of how those words had made Eddy hit him all those weeks ago (and yet _still_ he'd said them _again_ – what was _wrong_ with him?), Double D mentally shook himself. He had to continue, no matter how all this was hurting his raw, frazzled, overly sensitive nerves, no matter how much he just wanted to be curled in a ball somewhere soft, wrapped around his physical and emotional wounds – Eddy deserved an explanation.

_"Been to the bottom of every bottle."_

"It was an accident," Double D whispered, carefully ignoring the sudden tightening of Eddy's lips. "I was distraught, and Ed was merely comforting me-"

Double D broke off when he caught a glimpse of Ed's face. His friend did not look happy. Not at all.

_"These five words in my head..."_

Eddy caught the interplay, and even noticed something Double D had not – the look on Ed's face during Double D's hurried explanation. In Eddy's head, that look condemned them all more than just about anything else could have.

_"Scream 'are we havin' fun yet?'"_

For the look on Ed's open, honest face had been, for him, strangely complicated. It was almost as though he'd understood just enough for his feelings to be hurt...

_"Yet... yet... yet... no, no..."_

And for some odd, unfathomable reason, that disturbed Eddy most of all.

_"Yet... yet... yet... no, no..."_

Double D's admission had satisfied no one, least of all him. But the pain and betrayal on both Eddy and Ed's faces rendered him heartbroken, breathless and mute.

_"It's not like you didn't know that..."_

But he wanted to speak, to fix, to cure what he knew he had somehow caused. He wanted.

_"I said I love you..."_

Double D glanced from Ed to Eddy, lost in his pain and not comprehending why the man he loved was now doubting him.

_"...and I swear..."_

Ed stared at Double D, consumed by the new, unnamable feeling of guilt within him because, although he'd wished for Eddy's help, part of him now wanted him and Double D to be alone again – though he couldn't say why that was so.

_"...I still do."_

Eddy stared at Double D as well, wanting so much to be touching his beautiful, pale skin instead of just admiring it from afar.

_"And it must've been so bad..."_

Agonizingly slowly Ed realized that the unfamiliar feeling of sadness coating his insides was no longer just him feeling bad for Double D.

_"'Cause living with me..."_

Despite himself, Eddy moved closer to Double D; he'd missed his lover so much, so often, but he knew he was no better for Double D now than he'd ever been...

_"...must have damn near killed you."_

Unable to bear the intense, searching scrutiny of the two most important people in his life, Double D's sad eyes filled with fresh tears.

_"And this is how you remind me..."_

At the look in those sensitive eyes Eddy was suddenly lost in the memory of being eight years old, standing on the porch of the new family in the cul-de-sac with Ed by his side. He'd knocked, and the door had swung open-

Revealing the brightest, most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen.

_"...of what I really am."_

He'd fallen into those eyes that day, and he was still falling even now.

_"This is how you remind me of what I really am."_

Ed reached out to give Double D's trembling shoulder a friendly pat just as Eddy brushed a single strand of hair from Double D's bruised, wet eyes. At the touch of both of their hands Double D felt suddenly caught.

_"It's not like you to say 'sorry'..."_

"I – I can't do this," he stuttered, not even sure himself what he meant. "I _can't_."

_"I was waiting on a different story."_

Neither Ed nor Eddy seemed to really comprehend his meaning, but Eddy at least obviously took it personally – he recoiled in a worse way than he would have if Double D had struck him.

Immediately Double D reached out for him, but Eddy swatted his hand away – their flesh connected with a sharp smack that managed to make all three boys flinch violently.

_"This time I'm mistaken..."_

Double D drew his hand back to his chest, unhappy color flooding his cheeks. Annoyed at himself for causing such a reaction, Eddy ran a hand through his usually stiffly slicked back hair, not caring that he could feel it separating between his fingers. Double D had used to enjoy doing that to his hair using _his_ fingers, working out the various hair products Eddy used so diligently to keep his 'signature style'...

He dropped his hand to his side, suddenly uncomfortable.

_"For handing you a heart worth breaking."_

Ed fidgeted as he stared at Double D, his stomach churning. It felt like he'd swallowed a barrel of snakes, and for a moment he wondered if maybe he _had_.

But no, he'd been with Double D all morning, and Double D would never have let him swallow snakes.

Though oddly enough, it was looking at Double D that made him feel he had.

_"And I've been wrong..."_

Ed's eyes wandered over to Eddy. He, too, looked as though his stomach was bothering him – maybe he felt like snakes were in his belly, too? Only one way to find out.

"Are there snakes in your belly, too, Eddy?" he asked innocently.

_"I've been down..."_

Eddy's gaze landed on Ed – and seeing him, standing so close by Double D's side, shifted Eddy's mood and demeanor entirely. All the anger that he'd tamped down during his walk to the junkyard came rushing back, flooding him with jealous rage and the closest thing to hate he could feel for his oldest friend.

He glared at Ed, and the enraged look in his eyes was so blatant that even Ed couldn't miss its meaning. He cowered.

_"Been to the bottom of every bottle."_

As always when Eddy was furious with Ed Double D's heart demanded he step in. But as his instincts kicked in and he felt his mouth opening, he knew he could only make things worse. He knew.

_"These five words in my head..."_

"Please, Eddy, don't be angry-"

_"Scream 'are we havin' fun yet?'"_

"_Angry_?" Eddy scowled at Double D, but then spoke in a disturbingly cheerful voice. "You're _right_, Double D. Why should I be _angry_? After all, Ed was just _comforting_ you-" He turned to Ed and barked, "_right_?"

Ed, caught off guard, simply looked blank.

_"Yet... yet... yet... no, no..."_

"You and your _comfort_," Eddy spat. "I'm startin' to think it's a fetish of yours, Sockhead. I mean, that's how _we_ started, right? You comforted me, now Ed's comforting you – it must really get you off."

Double D paled at his words, and Eddy, disgusted, couldn't look at him any longer. He wrenched his furious gaze back to Ed.

_"Yet... yet... yet... no, no..."_

It was plain that Ed hadn't understood a word of that little exchange. His warm, worried eyes were traveling between Eddy and Double D, focused for once but still utterly, hopelessly, openly confused. Eddy's fury increased exponentially at the sight.

What was Double D thinking, kissing Ed? Ed couldn't possibly understand sex, couldn't possibly give Double D what he needed-

Eddy was gritting his teeth so hard he developed a vicious headache. The very idea of Ed – big, dumb, sweet, eminently lovable Ed – taking his place in Double D's arms and bed was enough to make him see red.

_"Yet... yet... yet..."_

Without stopping to think, Eddy stomped forward and roughly grabbed Double D's slender arm in an unbreakable grip. Ignoring his feeble, hoarse cry of "Eddy, wha..." Eddy dragged Double D deeper into the junkyard. Not knowing what else to do, after a moment Ed followed blindly.

_"...no, no..."_

Finally they reached their destination. Eddy yanked the back doors of their van sanctuary wide open, and without so much as glancing at Double D hauled him up and pushed him inside. Already off-balance from being so thoroughly and violently mishandled, Double D stumbled, falling backwards onto the waterbed with a small but nevertheless panicked scream.

Ignoring that with a will, Eddy called over his shoulder in a deceptively calm voice that belied the rage dancing in his eyes, "c'mere, Ed." Trained to obey Eddy's commands without question, Ed stepped up beside him, his face still alight with childlike confusion.

_"Yet... yet... yet..."_

There was a horrified ache in Eddy's chest now, not caused by but certainly exacerbated by the look of fear and dread Double D was trying so valiantly, so desperately to hide. But Eddy's own pain and his wounded pride demanded he go on, that he finish what he'd begun.

"So go on, then, _Eddward_," he growled, making the name sound like the filthiest swear word imaginable.

"You wanted him – _fuck_ him."

_"No... no."_

Double D's cheeks burned almost painfully from the coarse language - and the sentiment behind it. Eddy meant so much with those two words, and Double D knew it. He met Eddy's inconsolable, irate gaze with hot, disbelieving tears clouding his eyes.

_"Never made it as a wise man..."_

Very slowly and with excruciating deliberateness, Double D shook his head, a mute and pained refusal.

It did nothing to improve Eddy's foul temper.

"What," he said snidely, "shy all of a sudden?" Eddy glanced at the prone Ed, who was still standing beside him in abject, mounting, worried confusion, and smirked mirthlessly. "Or maybe you're starting to rethink _seducing my best friend_."

His loud voice made even the mystified statue that was Ed flinch a little, and at the edge of his hearing Eddy heard Double D give a pitiful whimper.

Deep in his heart, in that moment, Eddy hated himself.

_"I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing."_

"Go on, Monobrow," Eddy forced himself to prod, still glaring heatedly at the boy standing so uncharacteristically still and silent beside him and ignoring the frantic pain he could feel emanating in shuddering, icy waves from his former lover. "You've gotta be curious by now, eh, Lumpy? So go on. _Fuck_ him."

Turning his furious, wet eyes to Double D, he muttered just loud enough for both of them to hear.

"He'll let you."

_"And this is how you remind me."_

"_Fuck him_," Eddy repeated when Ed still didn't move, but Double D could easily read the real message in those eyes he knew so well.

_Fuck you_.

_"This is how you remind me."_

Ed could not, simply _could not_, understand what Eddy was asking of him. But the continual surprises of the morning had left him in a dull haze of shock, and even if he'd wanted to he could not have thought of the words to ask Eddy to explain.

He was almost pathetically grateful when he saw Eddy gesture for him to get in the van. This, at last, he understood.

With a small, relieved, goofy grin he climbed in.

_"This is how you remind me..."_

A picture flashed in Double D's mind-

A different face crawled towards him on hands and knees.

Blind, unstoppable fear turned his blood to ice, freezing him in place.

_"Of what I really am."_

Startled by Ed's instant obedience, Eddy's anger rose even higher, spurred on by what he saw as Ed's docile eagerness and Double D's quiet acceptance – which only proved to him that they really _did_ want each other.

_"This is how..."_

Ed didn't know what Eddy wanted him to do now that he was in the van. But even he could tell that Double D was really upset, possibly even more upset than he'd been when huddling on Ed's bed earlier. And it pulled at Ed, just as it always had.

_"You remind me..."_

Unbeknownst to Ed and Eddy, who couldn't see that well into the shadowy recesses of the van, Double D's usually emotion-filled eyes had gone blind.

_"Of what I really am."_

Wanting nothing more than to help, Ed reached for Double D, while behind him Eddy's heart continued to break.

_"It's not like you..."_

A hand was coming towards him, fingers splayed, arm outstretched and advancing. Double D let out a high, shrill, keening wail.

_"...to say 'sorry'..."_

Upon hearing that desperate scream Eddy's anger became instantly lost in his guilt-ridden worry – and fear.

_"I was waiting on a different story."_

Ed paused, staring at Double D with wide, befuddled eyes. Even he knew that that was not a natural sound flowing from Double D's throat. He fervently wished Double D would stop shrieking just so he could think clearly enough to figure out a way to get Double D to stop.

But his hand was stuck in the air, extended towards Double D, and it was all Double D's blind eyes could see.

_"This time I'm mistaken..."_

Tears were streaming unchecked down Double D's cheeks, but he didn't even blink – all he could do was stare. Every second that passed terrified Ed and Eddy a little more, sent shivers all the way into their bones.

The first to break out of his paralyzing shock was Eddy. Cautiously he moved closer to the van, leaning inside to stare at the cowering, quivering form of the boy he adored above all others.

He tried to keep his voice soft and gentle, as befitted the circumstances, but he also had to make sure his voice carried through Double D's pain. "Double D," he began-

And was startled into silence when Double D's panic-stricken howl petered off into frail, strangled begging.

_"For handing you a heart worth breaking."_

"Please, leave me alone," he whispered, a lump forming in Eddy's throat at his words. Double D was sending him away? After all that unexplained screaming, that was all he wanted to say?

But then Double D went on.

_"And I've been wrong..."_

"I don't want this," Double D whimpered. "I swear I don't, don't _touch_ me, cease, desist, _please stop_-"

He choked off.

_"I've been down..."_

Ed recoiled, his hand drawing back to his chest and tears welling in his eyes. Was Double D mad at him now – had he done something wrong? Maybe he could make it better if he held him again.

Without warning Ed reached out to hug Double D, just as Eddy crawled into the van beside them.

_"Been to the bottom..."_

At the touch of hands on his sensitive flesh Double D screamed again, a shriek of pure, unadulterated terror, and Ed immediately let him go.

_"...of every bottle."_

Quick as lightning Double D was scrambling past Ed and Eddy, falling out of the van and onto the ground in his haste to get away.

_"These five words in my head..."_

And all they could do was watch him flee.

_"...scream 'are we havin' fun yet?'"_

Though his own home was the scene and seat of his pain, it was the only haven Double D's fractured mind could come up with, so that was where he ran. By the time he got there he was completely out of breath, winded from physical, mental, and emotional exertion. He slammed and locked the door, then fell against it and slid down, a breathless, sobbing heap.

_"Yet..."_

Eddy sat back on his heels, staring at the last place he had seen Double D as he ran from them. He hadn't meant to frighten Double D, had not even been aware that such a deep, overwhelming fear could be felt. Even for one as neurotic and high-strung as Double D, that reaction had been over-the-top. And why...?

Feeling the need to have someone to commiserate with, Eddy turned to Ed-

_"Yet..."_

Then he remembered Ed's lips on Double D's.

_"Are we havin' fun yet?"_

With a disgusted growl Eddy clambered out of the van. Confused but still strangely silent and passive, Ed followed him like an unhappy puppy begging for his master to lower the rolled-up newspaper held above his head.

_"Yet..."_

That hangdog look used to bring hot tears instantly flooding into Eddy's eyes.

Now he just felt cold.

_"Yet..."_

Ed tried to focus, tried to bring his mind around. There was something he wanted to say, something important, but the ice emanating from Eddy was distracting – it was so unlike his usual angry heat and passion.

But everything this day had been different.

Everything this day had been wrong.

_"Are we havin' fun yet?"_

Double D... Something Double D had told him needed to be told to Eddy, so Eddy could help...

But Eddy was already turning away, and Ed just couldn't remember.

_"Five words in my head..."_

So Ed blurted out the single thing he could remember, the most important thing he knew to be true.

"We must help Double D, Eddy."

_"Are we havin' fun yet?"_

Eddy looked back over his shoulder at him, studying him, saying nothing for the longest time. When he finally spoke, he didn't sound angry, or resentful – just hollow, sad... Grieved.

_"Five words in my head..."_

"Just don't follow me, Lumpy."

_"No..."_

He walked away, leaving Ed standing in the middle of the junkyard, a lone figure amid piles of forgotten, useless things.

_"No."_


	12. Chapter 12 Gathering Gloom

Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Lullaby". The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network, the song belongs to The Cure (and I strongly urge anyone who has never heard the song to find a copy, because it is an amazing – and _creepy_ – song. Support The Cure!). Rated R for sexual situations, language, you know the drill. Still a slash story. Also, (Spoiler!) this chapter contains some non-con, so proceed with caution, please.

Special thanks, as always, to darthelwig, for the inspiration. Also, thanks to FateSisterFwa, who has been drawing some beautiful fan art for this story. If you'd like to see it, the link to my web site is on my profile page, and I'll be putting up the pics as soon as possible. She's a very talented artist, so check her out.

One last thing – I may or may not have the very last line of this song right. I apologize for any annoyance this may cause.

Anyway (that was long, wasn't it?), enjoy. Peace, all.

Gathering Gloom

by Ghost Helwig

_"On candystripe legs..."_

Nighttime. Double D had spent the entire day in his house. After sobbing until he was utterly wrung out, he'd begun implementing as many cleaning procedures as he possibly could, stopping only to bathe whenever the need to overtook him; which was far more often than he was sure was healthy, but was, in his head, entirely in keeping with his particular situation. Before nightfall the entire first floor of his home had been cleaned from top to bottom – and he'd bathed nine times.

He didn't eat. He couldn't eat. All he could do was clean-

And wait.

_ "...the spiderman comes..."_

The doors and windows were all locked up tight. His parents weren't home – when were they ever? – but he still didn't leave all the lights on like he wanted to. It was too much of a waste for his sensibilities to accept.

But the fact that he had considered it at all, even for a moment, was proof enough of the depth of his fear.

_"Softly through the shadow..."_

Slowly he climbed the stairs to his bedroom to grab his nightclothes, wishing fervently that he didn't have to be alone from now on. If only Ed or Eddy could be here, with him...

But Eddy no longer cared for him. And he absolutely refused to harm Ed and Eddy's relationship any further by inviting Ed to stay with him just to combat his fear.

But he was so _alone_. So very, very alone...

_"...of the evening sun."_

And scared. Double D was more than willing to admit that he was absolutely terrified.

_ "Stealing past the windows..."_

It was when he was in the bathroom shaving that he realized how easy it would be to end it.

_ "...of the blissfully dead."_

He could think of a dozen or so ways to kill himself that would be practically painless, and even more that wouldn't be. Despite the temptation to find some sort of peace, of surcease, though, he knew he was not the kind of person who would (or even _could_) do that-

But for a moment, he wished that he was.

And that was somehow worse.

_ "Looking for the victim..."_

After one last tour of his house to check that he was still alone and everything was still locked up, he went into his bedroom and locked the door. Then he turned off the light and practically dove into bed, not feeling even remotely safe until he was under the blankets, which had to be tucked completely around him, cocooning him.

He huddled there, hands gripping tightly, clutching the blanket under his chin, his exhausted eyes held wide open by his terror.

_ "...shivering in bed."_

He tried to think of something happy to combat his fear, but all he could remember was the pain on Eddy's face when he stood framed by Ed's doorway, watching them...

But slowly his mind began to drift, and he was pulled into a much older memory...

_"Searching out fear..."_

He remembered the first time Eddy had ever kissed him; the hot sun beating down, the kids gathering, watching-

And Eddy's lips, so hot and smooth and sweet, crying out a plea for forgiveness just before capturing his...

It was the first kiss in his life he ever felt.

_ "...in the gathering gloom..."_

It was years before they kissed again. But Double D never forgot that day, and those lips...

And they comforted him.

_"...and Suddenly!"_

But just as quickly as he'd drifted into his reminiscing he was jolted out of it by the unnatural shifting of the shadows that played on the wall by the window closest to his bed.

_ "A movement in the corner of the room!"_

Had he left the window unlocked? Oh _dear_, what if he _had_...?

"H-hello?" he called uncertainly. The shadows moved again, and Double D could almost feel them laughing at him.

_ "And there is nothing I can do..."_

He froze, heart beating out a rapid rhythm in his chest. He could feel it slamming against his ribs, could feel the tightness that meant a panic attack was imminent. But all he was capable of was staring, and praying.

_"...when I realize with fright..."_

The shadows moved, solidified. Double D closed his eyes in horrified defeat.

_ "...that the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight!"_

He could feel eyes on him, horrible, judging eyes. He knew those eyes scorned him, found his anguish distasteful and possibly even funny. He knew.

_ "Quietly he laughs..."_

The shadow was grinning at him now, he could feel it, grinning at him like a snake would if snakes could grin. He knew that, with every cell of his body.

_ "...and shaking his head..."_

Was it moving? Double D thought it was moving, but he was too terrified to open his eyes to see.

_ "Creeps closer now..."_

He could feel those eyes staring down at him, watching him quiver with ill-disguised delight. He wanted to not give in, to not show fear to that which took such pleasure from it, but it was far beyond his meager acting abilities to pretend he wasn't awash in helpless, hopeless terror. He did not want to be... touched... again.

_ "Closer to the foot of the bed..."_

He felt the mattress dip ever-so-slightly as someone sat down on the edge, near his chest. Suddenly the protecting blankets felt constricting, confining – like a trap, a cage. Yet he didn't want to be out from under them, either...

He wanted to flee, but even if his legs worked he had nowhere to run... All his bridges were burned.

_ "And softer than shadow..."_

A gossamer touch ghosted over his cheek, and he had to bite his lip to ward off the cry of forlorn desolation it aroused in him.

_ "...and quicker than flies..."_

Between one breath and the next the blanket was torn from him. He was left lying there, only his clothes between him and the malignant shadowy figure he could sense still beside him. But though he'd forgone his usual sleeveless undershirt and boxers for old, baggy yellow one-piece pajamas he'd worn as an adolescent, it still did not seem to be protection enough.

_ "...his arms are all around me..."_

Hands were suddenly snaking paths on his skin, caressing, pinching, leaving little cuts. And he knew he was lost.

_ "...and his tongue in my eyes."_

A mouth met his, traveled up and over his forehead, his nose, his eyes, before returning to his lips and forcing them to part.

A tongue forced its way into his mouth, nearly choking him with its incessant, insistent pushing and questing. It wanted him to yield. And for a second he was tempted; anything to stop the pain.

_"'Be still...'"_

But he couldn't give in, because there was only one person in the world he wanted to give this to-

And Eddy wasn't here.

_ "'Be calm...'"_

But what would fighting gain him? He'd fought last time, fought until his limbs were exhausted, and it had just seemed to make him easier prey...

_ "'Be quiet now...'"_

"_Please_," he whimpered, unable to stop himself. "Please just let me go..."

The only reply was more mocking laughter.

_"'My precious boy...'"_

It seemed that even though he knew it was futile, pointless, he couldn't give in or truly give up – when featherlight fingers brushed his nipples he lashed out, trying to knock those fiendish, violating hands away.

_"'Don't struggle like that...'"_

But cruel laughter rained down on him once more, and as his pajamas were brutally stripped from him lips captured his in yet another bruising, punishing, ravaging kiss.

_"'...or I will only love you more.'"_

Hands held his shoulders down as a heavy weight crawled atop him. It was happening, all over again, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

More hands brushed over his waist, dipped lower, and he screamed.

_ "'For it's much too late...'"_

His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, trying to block everything out, but he could still _feel_ it, he could feel all of it, everything that was done to him...

Even refusing to open his eyes provided no escape.

_"'...to get away...'"_

_Eddy_, his mind cried out, _you've got to save me from this!_ Please!

But even if he'd screamed it aloud Eddy would not have heard him – perhaps not have even heeded him.

_"'Or turn on the light...'"_

But no, he knew Eddy would protect him, no matter what had passed between them Eddy would always protect him. Even when they were younger Eddy had been that way – when he'd gotten all the kids in trouble by telling their parents they were disobeying rules, Eddy had been furious with him but had still protected him from the wrath of the others, had tried to make excuses for him when they advanced...

So Eddy would protect him...

It was just too late for that to matter.

_"'The spiderman is having you for dinner tonight.'"_

One hot mouth kissed him, while another lowered itself between his legs-

And even while that was going on hands pulled on him, pushing his legs up, spreading his thighs...

_"And I feel like I'm being eaten..."_

Something pressed against him in an entirely too intimate area, and Double D cried out at the sudden onslaught of frantic, terrified pain. He didn't want this, he didn't want this...

He didn't even realize he was muttering his thoughts aloud, in between panicked whispers.

"I don't want this." A small sob, then, "I don't want this, I don't want this..."

_ "...by a thousand million shivering furry holes..."_

The figure devouring him looked up sharply, he could sense it – and when the shadow spoke he could feel its arrogant words sliding along his bones like tainted water.

"Of course you want it. I can tell. I can always tell."

_ "And I know that in the morning..."_

Only one figure remained, ready to thrust into him. He knew those hands, that body, that voice, and he knew what he would feel beneath his fingers if he reached up to touch that face...

But even though he already knew he had to see in order to truly believe.

_"...I will wake up..."_

When his eyes opened, the dream ended.

_ "...in the shivering cold..."_

Double D was left lying there, the covers strewn on the floor, cowering on his own bed in the thick, suffocating darkness of the night, feeling cold and unclean and _vulnerable_.

_ "And the spiderman is always hungry..."_

He didn't know he was crying until he could no longer breathe through his nose.

_ "'Come into my parlor...'"_

He wept into his hands, wishing he could go back, erase. Did anyone know what it had cost him to run all the way across the cul-de-sac to Ed's that morning? To go out there, where it was unsafe-

But it was no safer here.

_ "...said the spider to the fly..."_

He should've gone straight to Eddy. He knew that now. But he'd been afraid. Afraid that Eddy would not be alone – and of what that would do to him. Afraid that Eddy would blame him for this as he'd blamed him for Kevin's flirting-

And afraid that he would be very, very right to blame him.

Mostly, though, he was afraid that Eddy _wouldn't_ blame him, would instead hold him, comfort him, love him-

All out of pity.

And deep in his heart he knew that he'd gone to Ed for another reason as well.

Ed, besides being big and safe and comforting, was _Ed_.

He could not understand. And deep down Double D didn't want him to.

_ "'...for I have a little something here...'"_

Because if Ed understood, that would make all this real. And that was something Double D just could not allow it to be.

So he huddled around himself, and the secret he had managed to tell while truly telling no one at all.


	13. Chapter 13 Inside Your Eyes

Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "I Saw Red". The Eds belong to the Cartoon Network and the song belongs to Warrant. Rated R for slash, swearing, and so on...

Special thanks to Darthelwig for inspiring me to write this as a series and for typing this chapter for me. I owe you one, Lumpy. ('lol')

Author's Notes – I also want to thank someone named DeadByDagger, who left me a review that had me in tears. Thank you so much for your kindness - you inspire, flatter, and humble me. I sent an email a while back with the long version of my thanks, so let me just finish here by saying – _Thank You._

Also, I want to apologize to everyone for the incredibly long update time, I'll try not to ever let that happen again... And before I forget, the episode referenced here is "Your Ed Here", the one where Kevin blackmails Eddy with his knowledge of Eddy's middle name...

Anyway, on with the show. Enjoy. Peace, all.

Inside Your Eyes

by Ghost Helwig

Brooding. That's what Eddy was doing, what he had been doing since he'd left Ed alone in the junkyard and come home. He brooded when the phone rang, he brooded when his parents called him to dinner, he brooded when Nazz knocked on his door that night. It was all he felt capable of doing.

_"Ooh it must be magic..."_

If his parents noticed his depression, they made no mention of it, and allowed him to retire to his bedroom without dinner and without comment. Not that he would've cared about anything they had to say, but it was nice to be left alone – especially since he could share his pain with neither of them. After all, what could he possibly say?

_"How inside your eyes..."_

Could he tell them the truth? Confess his undying, irritating love for the most intelligent, beautiful, _impossible_ boy he'd ever known?

It was clear to him that he couldn't.

It was clear to him that they wouldn't care.

_"I see my destiny."_

Was this how things were supposed to be? He couldn't make himself believe that it was. There was this consistently throbbing lump in his throat that proclaimed the wrongness to him, a lump that only grew and grew as he moped.

And in his heart of hearts, he knew that this was all his fault.

_"Every time we kiss..."_

He kept remembering seeing Ed and Double D kiss, kept remembering the falling in the pit of his stomach. And he knew what Ed must've experienced in that moment – he could still taste Double D on his lips, in his mouth, that honeyed sweetness...

_ "I feel you breathe your love..."_

And the connection Eddy felt with Double D when they kissed – he'd never found that with anyone else. Even the first time they'd kissed, when Kevin had forced them to, had been... _special._ To Eddy, it was very, very special.

_"...so deep inside of me."_

It was the first kiss in his life he ever felt.

_"If the moon..."_

And Double D's were still the only kisses that ever mattered.

_"...and stars should fall..."_

It was funny, though – looking back, he knew he never could've seen this coming. How could he have known then that the boy who'd once irritated and bothered him more than anyone else would go on to be the one person he couldn't live without? He'd always believed that kind of romance only happened in the movies.

Though since he and Double D had once had a running joke about their lives being a television show, perhaps it was only fitting.

_"...they'd be easy to replace..."_

For just a moment, he lost himself in older memories, memories of sun and sweat and laughter and a seemingly endless summer. But all too soon his fond memory of the always high-strung, oftimes sarcastic, unfailingly logical and loyal boy Double D had been were replaced by the young man who'd once walked into his room, deliberately stripped off his shirt, and promptly had the deepest blush imaginable bloom on his cheeks...

And it was that same innocently sexual young man who never stopped haunting his thoughts.

_"I would lift you up to Heaven..."_

Or his room. It seemed everywhere Eddy looked in his room he could see Double D...

In the corner by his record player he could see Double D standing with his eyes closed, humming quietly along with the music, a look of open, studying pleasure on his face... Against his closed closet door he could see Double D leaning back, could feel what it had been like to have Double D in his mouth, to be holding those slim, sweat-slick hips trapped and trembling... And in his bed...

His bed was saturated, in some ways literally, with memories of Double D...

And despite himself, he wouldn't have it any other way.

_ "...and you would take their place."_

Beautiful memories of a beautiful boy – they should make him happy, bring him joy. They should.

But they didn't.

_"Then I saw red."_

But all those memories – he wouldn't give them up, but they were overlaid with another, one he didn't want to see, one he saw everywhere, all the time.

_"When I opened up the door..."_

He often wondered if in that moment of stunned, icy stillness before recognition clicked he could've done something, even just told himself something, that would've eased the shock or dulled the pain. He doubted it.

_"I saw red..."_

And the anger he would've expected to feel at such a complete betrayal, the anger he knew lurked inside him – where had it gone? For it hadn't been the first emotion he felt, he hadn't even felt it at all until he was in the junkyard.

No, the first thing he felt-

Was his heart breaking.

_"My heart just spilled onto the floor..."_

And the look on Double D's face in the moment before he saw Eddy – that haunted him most of all. For beneath the surprise and the odd, lethargic weariness that covered Double D like a death shroud had been a strange sort of haggard peace.

_ "And I didn't need to see his face..."_

He hadn't been able to see Ed from his vantage point, but that had hardly mattered-

What he saw of Double D was more than enough,

That look he'd seen – how could he compete with that look?

_"I saw yours."_

That look was what had driven him to say what he had, to leave without doing something foolish, to feel only pain until the shock wore off. If Double D had ever looked like that with him, he could no longer remember it-

But that was not an easy look to forget.

_"I saw red and then I closed the door."_

So, an ending. Another. When he just couldn't take anymore, he and Double D had managed to find a way to end their relationship yet _again_. And just for kicks, this time his friendship with Ed had gone down with it.

_ "I don't think I'm gonna love you anymore."_

He wasn't sure when he drifted off, but he woke in the dawn gloom with shards of pink light streaming through his blinds and directly into his eyes. His head was pounding, but that was nothing to the sick, throbbing agony in his chest.

_"Every day I wake up..."_

He blinked, and blinked more rapidly when he realized his eyes were blurring with tears – which he assured himself were caused by the light shining in his eyes. He had to blink these betraying tears away. Edgar did not _cry_.

Not over this. Not over anything.

Not anymore.

_ "I thank God that you are still a part of me."_

There was a knock on his door, conspicuous because of the early hour and the hesitancy of the sound. It couldn't be Ed – when he bothered knocking (which was rarely) it sounded like a bull was ramming into his door. So who-

Eddy was suddenly up and _there_, by his door, Double D's name poised on his lips, ready to fall.

_"We've opened up the door..."_

But it was only Nazz who stood there when he opened the door, Nazz who blinked up at him, wearing her most seductive smile.

Double D's name dropped, unsaid, into the pit of his stomach, wrapped in a tight, aching ball of regret and disappointment.

_"...to which so many people never find the key."_

Never one to hide his emotions, Eddy snapped, "what do you want?" Nazz looked taken aback for a moment, but then her cool, unruffled persona reasserted itself, embracing and altering her features with an almost visible mask.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" she purred. Eddy's stomach, already sensitive this morning, churned and boiled at her tone. Her very existence only reminded him of what he had done, how he had failed – he did not want her here.

_"And if the sun..."_

With Double D gone, he needed no more darkness in his life.

Double D's absence was enough.

_"...should ever fail to send its light..."_

He found he even missed the candles. Those insipid, ridiculous, ridiculously romantic white candles Double D had lit every time they were together – he missed them. What had started as a silently romantic gesture to comfort and warm Double D the night they gave their virginity to each other (a gesture Eddy himself was responsible for, had begun) had taken on such an undeniable, unearthly and necessary significance...

But to use candles with Nazz would've been a sacrilege, so he never had.

_"...we would burn a thousand candles..."_

That first night the flames had danced in Double D's eyes, a flickering play of light and shadow in the brilliant depths that had captivated Eddy as he pushed Double D down into the mattress. The only thing Eddy could think to compare it with later was the ever-changing darkness he'd seen reflected in the hidden depths of an emerald his mother owned – it was the closest he could come to understanding that glittering dark look, yet it really wasn't close at all...

_"...and make everything alright."_

He realized, very slowly, that Nazz was staring at him, undoubtedly wondering why he hadn't let her in. But when she moved to go past him, he not only failed to step aside, he held out an arm to block her passage.

She looked up at him with wide, wide blue eyes. Beautiful eyes. Beautiful eyes that touched him not at all.

_"Then I saw red."_

"Eddy," she whispered, voice a low, seductive murmur, "don't you want me to come inside?" Obviously expecting a 'yes, of course'. Obviously expecting a slightly embarrassed smile and maybe a nervous nod. Obviously expecting an explanation and a moving of his in-the-way hand.

Obviously expecting anything but what she got.

_"When I opened up the door..."_

"No."

_"I saw red."_

Not spoken angrily, or with scorn – just a simple, unadorned, firm "no". But it affected Nazz like he'd sworn at her – she stiffened, eyes darkening and delicate nostrils flaring. His battered and bruised ego reared up, wanted to at least take comfort in the knowledge that his rejection had hurt her feelings just a little, but he knew that wasn't the case at all – he may've wounded her pride, but he'd never even gotten near her heart.

_"My heart just spilled onto the floor."_

Yet for all of that, he must've really gotten to her, affected her – what else could account for what she did next?

_ "And I didn't need to see his face..."_

Trailing her fingers down his chest, she whispered in a harsh, hoarse voice quite unlike her usual slinky purr, "c'mon, Eddy, prove to me at least one of the Eds is a _real_ man."

_"I saw yours."_

Hearing those words cruelly tossed at him would've torn Double D up inside, and Eddy knew it. It took all his self-control to not push Nazz roughly away from him. Her touch disgusted him – he felt dirtied, sullied beyond his own ability to clean.

_"I saw red..."_

And _angry_. Suddenly, he felt a savage, protective anger begin deep in his gut and start to consume his body. How _dare_ she?

_"...and then I closed the door."_

"You know what, Nazz?" he hissed, his face mere inches from hers. "My _friends _may not meet your _standards _for men, but since you still hang out with Kevin, I really don't think that's saying much."

As he watched the meaning of his words sink in he pulled back, and spoke again only when he was about to close the door on her stunned, indignant face.

"I don't ever want to see you here again. _Ever_."

_ "I don't think I'm gonna love you anymore."_

As the door swung shut he thought he heard a vile whisper of "fag" floating through the air towards him, but he decided not to care one way or another.

_ "I've been hurt..."_

He leaned against the closed door, trying to steady breathing turned ragged with emotion. For all the bravery of mere moments before, the icy anger that had sustained him through it was fading, replaced by a newfound and completely unexpected tinge of pain. Nazz had been a 'friend' (as much as any of the non-Eds had ever been his 'friends'), the first girl he'd ever been with, the first girl he'd ever wanted – and in a way he could not articulate, she'd betrayed him.

For the first time, he knew he'd gotten a taste of what it had been like for Double D these past weeks.

And that taste was bitter.

_ "...and I've been blind..."_

And somehow Eddy ended up kneeling on the floor, sobs ripping through his body, face buried in his hands, releasing all his mounting pain as a frustrated scream muffled in his palms.

_ "I'm not sure that I'll be fine..."_

"Bastard," Eddy could finally, after an hour of heartfelt weeping, draw breath enough to whisper hoarsely. "Stupid, stupid bastard." It was all he could think of to call himself.

_ "I never thought it would end this way..."_

This was what his anger had gotten him, this was what trying to live up to his brother and trying to be as cool as possible and trying to remain living in the shadow of his own screwed-up version of a 'real man' had left him with – nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

_ "'Cause I saw red..."_

How could he have failed to realize that the only two people he needed to look up to him, adore him, and think the world of him already did? How could he have been so blind that he didn't realize it until he'd lost them both?

_ "When I opened up the door..."_

Ed shivered as he stood outside Eddy's room, but not from the cool early morning air. He'd had a restless, sleepless night, huddled on his bed and staring at the spot where Double D had sat so miserably, and though he couldn't remember everything clearly, he knew Eddy was mad at him. _Really _mad, not just the fiery annoyance that made him scream and insult and tackle. That was just Eddy being high-strung, being Eddy.

_"I saw red."_

But now...? Now Eddy was _furious_.

_"My heart just spilled onto the floor."_

But Double D – Double D needed them. That singular thought had crystallized in Ed's mind overnight, and it sustained him as the knowledge of Eddy's undoubtedly still vicious anger flooded through him. He could not give in to his fear of Eddy's rage while Double D needed them for... something.

_ "And I didn't need to see his face..."_

He knocked, the sound too loud in his sensitive ears. A minute later, he wasn't sure he'd knocked, so he did. And a minute after that...

Finally, the door opened, and Eddy was staring out at him.

_"Oh, I saw yours."_

Eddy's eyes were red-rimmed and very wet – Ed knew he'd been crying, and reached out, wanting to touch, to comfort, to wipe those tears away...

Eddy jerked away from his hand.

_"I saw red..."_

A sinking began in the pit of Ed's stomach, but he forced words up his constricted throat and out of his dry mouth.

In a voice strained with pain, he whispered, "Double D-"

And that was as far as he got before the door shut in his face.

_ "...and then I closed the door."_

Ed couldn't understand Eddy's reaction at first, but then his own pain somehow clarified the chaos in his mind, and he remembered.

Double D.

_ "I don't think I'm gonna love you anymore."_

Ed could still taste Double D on his lips, and he licked them, bringing that honeyed sweetness into his mouth, savoring and cherishing it...

And though he didn't know and couldn't understand why, Ed knew that that was what had made Eddy so furious with him – he'd relished that very special brush of lips on his.

_ "Ooh, it must be magic."_

It was the first kiss in his life he ever felt.


	14. Chapter 14 Cold While You Were Sleeping

Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Tuesday Morning". The Cartoon Network owns the Eds and Michelle Branch owns the song. I don't own Pine Sol, either, not even a bottle of it... Rated R for sexual situations, slash, and various other things; if you don't know all this by now, then I can't help you...

Because I'm an idiot, I forgot to mention in the last update that a wonderful poet named Dean sent me an absolutely lovely poem to go along with chapter 2 of this story. You can read it at my site, a link to which can be found on my profile page. While there, take a look at the beautiful fanart pic the talented ShellyG (you all know her, right? You don't? Then go read her stories here!) drew for chapter 3. The constant support & love this fic receives amazes & humbles me. Thank you all.

Author's Notes – I'm sorry for the long update time, but not only did we move but a certain review left on another site for another story that seemed to reference me & mine contributed to me having kind of a crisis of faith... However, I know now that I write not for people like that but for people who enjoy my work, like anyone who bothered to read these ridiculously long notes. You have only yourselves to thank for me continuing to write this story.

Also, I think we're about at the halfway point, if anyone's curious... And the special flavor given to Eddy in this story is all due to Mysticlynx & her brilliance, which I humbly thank her for sharing... If anyone's curious, Ed's 'taste' is all mine...

Well, I've rambled enough... Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

* * *

Cold (While You Were Sleeping)

by Ghost Helwig

* * *

He was dry heaving, kneeling on the sticky floor in front of the toilet. It smelled funny – his own never did. His smelled like cleaning solvents and air freshener; this smelled like... like toilet water, and... and _him_.

_He_ was watching, staring, concerned eyes boring into Double D's back. He wanted to come closer, but Double D knew he'd made it perfectly clear that he did not want to be touched right now.

So Ed stayed back, while Double D tried to vomit up the emptiness in his stomach.

_"I remember..."_

But emptiness was emptiness, and it gave him nothing. Eventually the ravening need to retch eased a little, just enough for him to close the toilet lid and lean his head down on the musty surface. He closed his eyes, trying to piece together how he'd gotten to this point, kneeling on Ed's eternally sticky bathroom floor...

_"...stormy weather..."_

After his nightmare he'd spent the day in a feverish and muddled haze, jumping at every little sound, no matter how familiar. The phone had rung once, and had he known a very nervous Eddy was on the other line, wanting to talk, to apologize, to understand, he would've answered it – as it was, he just stared at the phone in shock, stared like it was the devil come to claim him, until it had finally stopped ringing.

The phone call had startled him out of the house and into the darkening light of a dying day. With a heavy heart and nerves acutely attuned to every real or imagined threat, he made his quiet, cautious way deeper into the cul-de-sac. He didn't know where he was going, and didn't even stop to think about that until he was standing in front of Ed's basement window.

He stood there for a long time, a shivering deep in his bones, as the sky slowly melted to black above him.

_"The way the sky looks when it's cold."_

A hand gently grasped his shoulder, and he jumped, whirled and retreated almost all at once, ending up pressed against the wall and staring into Ed's warm, worried eyes.

_"And you were with me..."_

Ed spoke, softly, gently, doing his best not to startle Double D further. And the sweetness in that small gesture pulled at Double D, pulled him into Ed's arms.

Night was fully upon them by the time they parted, Double D solemnly wiping the tears from his eyes. Fingers, tender fingers, kind fingers, Ed's fingers, soon joined his, making him ache inside. He missed Eddy.

But Ed was there, and trying, so obviously trying. And it was his pride in Ed for that, his pride and his gratefulness, that allowed him to walk with Ed as Ed began gently guiding him back to his own home.

_"Content with walking..."_

Double D huddled into the curve of Ed's arm, the warmth of Ed slung around his shoulders a comforting, reassuring weight. He needed this, this trusted human contact. He needed...

_"So unaware of the world."___

Unbeknownst to both boys, Eddy waited for them in Double D's living room, sitting straight-backed and solemn on the pristine couch that seemed so new at any other time Eddy would've wondered if anyone had ever touched it before. As it was, he had far more important matters on his mind, like how he would greet Double D upon his arrival...

Not that he knew Ed and Double D were coming – when his call had gone unanswered, he'd mustered his courage until he could finally go see Double D in person. Having found Double D's front door uncharacteristically unlocked and ajar, he'd gone inside, unwilling to speculate on where his former flame had gone but convinced that Double D just _had_ to be returning soon...

And when he did, Eddy was going to do something he'd always intended to do but never actually managed.

He was going to tell Double D he loved him.

_"Please don't drive me home tonight..."_

As he stared at his own front door Double D suddenly realized he couldn't go back in, couldn't face another long, sleepless night filled with the horrors that ceaselessly haunted his mind.

"Ed," he gasped, "please, I can't – please, take me home."

Ed's eyes searched his out in the gloom, questioning, obviously confused. He sighed, gathered what courage he had remaining to him, and whispered hotly in Ed's ear, voice low and strained, pleading.

"Take me home with you."

_"...'cause I don't wanna feel alone."_

Ed's eyes were very, very wide; a child's eyes. He nodded.

_"Please don't drive me home tonight..."_

He took Double D home without a word, feeling Double D's warmth all along his side, burning him.

_"...'cause I don't wanna go."_

He made up his own bed, wishing it were cleaner – he knew how much Double D loved for things to be clean. But Double D didn't judge, didn't complain-

He didn't say anything at all.

_"Tuesday morning..."_

But the tears in his eyes spoke volumes.

_"...in the dark..."_

He settled into Ed's bed with Ed anxiously watching, hovering. It was an odd situation for both – usually, Double D worried, and hovered, and took care of everything and everyone. No one, not even his parents, had ever really taken care of him-

Except Eddy.

A few worthless tears spilled down Double D's too-pale cheeks, but he didn't cry.

...That would come later.

And some part of him knew it.

_"I was finding out..."_

He fell surprisingly quickly into a restless slumber, punctuated by occasional, unintelligible mumbles and a near-constant shifting of anxious, ill at ease limbs. Ed watched him, shifting from foot to foot, caught between the instinct to flee to a safer place and the need to lie down beside Double D and hold him close, closer even than skin.

But that thought made the feeling that he was standing on shifting, slippery rocks even greater, so he decided to draw instead.

_"...who you are."_

He pulled from underneath his bed the fairly large sketchbook Eddy and Double D had given him for his last birthday, having to search out the colored pencils that had also been part of their combined gift. He'd always loved drawing – his imagination could roam free, and it required no knowledge of math or science or any of the other things that simply escaped him and had nearly caused him to fail out of school more than once. (Though Ed would never know it, it did require a formidable knowledge of depth and dimension, which was given to him as an instinct, an insight, a gift.) If Double D had not tutored him relentlessly but with exquisite, inexhaustible patience this past year, even Ed was aware that he would not have graduated with his friends.

But while drawing provided an outlet for his fantasies and gave him the half-formed part-dream, part-goal of drawing a comic book of his own, no one seemed to believe it would ever get him anywhere. His parents had never bought him so much as a piece of real art paper.

So this book and these pencils meant the world to him. They were a sign that two people in his life felt he had worth – not that he thought of it in so many words.

In Ed's head, it simply showed that Eddy and Double D loved him.

_"I took your picture..."_

One of Double D's hands had slipped from its death-grip on the covers beneath his chin and now hung off the bed. Ed stared at those long, pale fingers, wondering in his own dim, slightly disjointed way at how fingers that could jot down formidable, complex, scientific theories or leave all watchers breathless as they danced across a pedal steel guitar could look so helpless now.

Without realizing it, Ed's own fingers, larger, blunter, more powerful, were sliding across the paper with a delicacy and skill the rest of his blundering body could only envy.

_"...while you were sleeping..."_

The picture was done within minutes. It was just a simple sketch, done with his special, glittering gold pencil, and Ed looked down at it in stupefied amazement. He'd intended to draw a monster, one with horns and a huge, spiked tail and overlarge, sharp front teeth.

Instead, he'd drawn Double D.

But it wasn't the Double D that slept before him. He was in the same position, wearing the same clothes, under the same covers, but he looked...

Like an angel.

_"...and then I paced around the room."_

Was that how he truly saw Double D? The thought and the picture disturbed Ed in some unnamable way, and in a strange fit of temper he shot to his feet, having flung the art book to the floor.

_"If I had known then..."_

He'd paced the suddenly too-small confines of his basement bedroom twice before he realized he was being watched. He turned to Double D with a sheepish look on his face, feeling gargantuan and yet strangely gangly as those fathom-filled eyes followed him.

Ed watched those glistening eyes catch the faint light of the moon streaming in through the tiny window, glittering and shining with unshed tears, and just as he'd been the last time Double D had been in this room, Ed was pulled, inexplicably touched, by those tears...

And Double D awkwardly patted the bed beside him, an obvious invitation.

_"...that these things happen..."_

Ed was cuddling him close, the warmth of his body creating an envelope of heat beneath the covers that felt almost like safety. It was an anchor in this strange, shifting world, at any rate, and Double D clutched at it, at him, like he was a lifeline.

But he needed more. He'd dreamed in those sparse few minutes of a deep pool of black water that shifted and swirled, and woken up feeling like he was drowning. Ed's mere touch was not enough to save him.

He needed Eddy. But Eddy was gone.

Soft lips tenderly brushed over his still unbound hair, and thoughtlessly he tilted his face up. He needed more...

_"Would they have happened with you?"_

Movies and comic books did not prepare one for seeing a look like that, a 'waiting-to-be-kissed' look, gracing the face of one's best friend. Ed just stared for a full minute, not – quite – comprehending that he was actually the saner, more together, more _there_, half of their particular duo at the moment, but knowing instinctively that there was something very, very, _very_ wrong.

But he wanted, maybe, and Double D needed, probably, and he definitely didn't know what to do, so he did what came naturally to even the most socially stunted person in the world at a moment like that one.

He kissed Double D's slightly parted lips, tasting honeysuckle.

_"Please don't drive me home tonight..."_

Despite his avid consumption of both, Ed didn't taste like either gravy or buttered toast – instead, the flavor on Double D's tongue was of fresh summer days, of childhood, of innocence, and lastly, of warm almonds...

That it wasn't the intense, melting, savory tang of cinnamon that was Eddy did not intrude on his sudden belief that it was indeed his wayward, lost lover holding him close, returned to him and staying.

He pulled Ed closer and kissed him deeper, losing himself in his desperate delusion.

_"...'cause I don't wanna feel alone."_

While in Double D's house, Eddy's nerves had driven him into his former lover's bedroom to wait for him. He'd sat down on his desk chair, but all too soon that wasn't enough – he'd come up here to feel closer to Double D, to feel connected.

So he laid his body down on Double D's perfectly made bed, hugging his lover's lightly scented pillow tightly to his chest. It smelled of honeysuckle, of his lover's skin, making Eddy feel even more wistful, even more alone. He hugged it even tighter, wishing it was Double D's warm, lithe form-

And wondering where in the world said form could possibly be.

_"Please don't drive me home tonight..."_

Kissing was very new to Ed. Sure, the Kankers had done it to him, and an incredibly odd girl at school had made a habit of cornering him wherever she could and trying to make out with him (Eddy and Double D saved him quickly, every time), but those experiences had not prepared him for the sweet heat nearly attacking his lips, demanding entrance, pulling him in...

He moaned helplessly, blushing at the sound, but Double D just wrapped his arms around him and pulled him even closer.

Something about the open need in Double D's touch, something about the way he was showing what he never showed, made Ed stiffen in his arms. Was this right?

_"...'cause I don't wanna go."_

Double D's sweet, probing tongue dove deeper into his mouth, and Ed moaned again, desolately as well as helplessly this time. Even if it was wrong, he didn't think he could stop.

_"Tuesday morning..."_

Double D's lips broke from his to mutter in a slurred, disjointed sort of way, "more... I need... more..."

His eyes suddenly opened, mind replacing the warm dark eyes before him with icy cool, the short flaming hair with longer locks of gold that were so slicked back with various gels that they looked black. He smiled just a little, a hint of his special smile, the one reserved for Eddy alone, and Ed's stomach twisted with a new heat.

"Please," Double D whispered, and almost as if he could read Ed's questioning mind he went on, "take it away. All of it. Erase it from my mind. I – I can't _live_ this way. _Please_, Ed-"

The rest of that so-important name was lost in Ed's mouth as Ed suddenly kissed him.

_"...in the dark..."_

Darkness shrouded Eddy's mind, though he was bathed in the artificial light of Double D's bathroom. He relieved himself mechanically, eyes wandering over the immaculately clean bathtub, the spotless, pale blue shower curtain, the perfectly shelved bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and various other products that his meticulous best friend used to keep his hair and skin healthy (as well as, incidentally, beautiful), the flawlessly neat selection of soaps-

And the suspiciously out-of-place pile of clothes in one corner of the room.

_"I was finding out..."_

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Eddy flushed the toilet and walked over, the sound of the pipes too loud in his ears, his own hesitant footsteps on the tile even louder. He knelt down beside the small pile, wondering what could've happened to make Double D drop his clothes here, when Eddy knew for a fact that he always took dirty laundry to his laundry chute immediately after it was sullied.

It couldn't be that he was neglecting his chores – the sharp bite of bleach mingled with the more pleasant smell of Pine Sol still lingered in the air, so strong it stung Eddy's nose even then, though the windows were open and he'd been in the house a long time.

Sure that he didn't want to know the answer to this mystery but condemned to finding out, Eddy picked up the red shirt, noting the rips, the small holes-

The dried blood.

_"...who I was."_

Some part of him, some very young part, died.

_"And if you turned around..."_

Dizzy. Ed felt very dizzy.

But Double D was beneath him, he was sure of that, and it seemed the only important direction in the world.

_"...to see me..."_

Double D ran his hands through Ed's short hair, some misty, indistinct part of him alarmed by the length and the pleasant coarseness of the hair between his fingers, wondering where the slick warmth of Eddy's hair had gone, the rest of him caught up in the relief of knowing that Eddy was with him.

Eddy loved him. Eddy would stop if he asked, would hold him if that was all he required, would never ask him for more than he was willing to give. And he needed that. He needed to be touched without being forcibly taken.

And that he could get that with Eddy, that he knew he could, allowed him to need even more.

_"...and I was gone..."_

Eddy stumbled over to the toilet, trying to vomit up the emptiness in his stomach. But emptiness was emptiness, and it gave him nothing.

Eventually the ravening need to retch eased a little, and he laid his head on the fluffy, pale blue, lightly apple-scented cover of the toilet lid and began to sob brokenly.

_"You should have looked outside your window..."_

Going purely on instinct, as thoughts were hard for Ed to truly _form_ in even the best, the clearest of situations (of which this was definitely not one), Ed leaned up to pull off his shirt, wanting only to be as close to Double D as possible. Apparently Double D shared his desire – he stripped off his own shirt and immediately pulled Ed back down for a long, deep kiss. Bare flesh brushed bare flesh for the first time, and Ed gasped into Double D's mouth.

And hands were pulling at Ed's pants, and Ed found his own hands yanking at Double D's shorts seemingly of their own free will (he didn't _think_ he told them to do that, but then, he wasn't really _thinking_, was he?), and when there were only two pairs of thin boxers left between them Ed finally realized that he was going farther than he'd ever gone-

And with one of his best friends.

Instead of worrying or alarming him, the thought made him smile brightly against Double D's partly open, panting lips.

_"...'cause the sun was coming up."_

It was only when they were completely naked and Double D's hand was sliding down his chest that Ed's foggy brain finally fully caught up with the proceedings and reminded him that he had no idea what was going on or what was expected of him.

But before he could panic Double D's gentle hand wrapped around him in a place no one else, not even he, had ever really touched, and his brain shut down entirely.

_"The sun was coming up."_

It was still the deep dark of late night, but the pale illumination of the moon shining through the high window lit up Eddy's gleaming eyes as he gasped at the pleasure Double D knew he was giving him. Double D leaned closer, blushing a pale pink, and whispered in Eddy's ear.

_"Oh..."_

"I want you in me," his soft voice pleaded gently. "Right now."

_"Please don't drive me home tonight..."_

Ed knew he should know what Double D meant, but knowing he should know was not the same as actually knowing. So he paused, thinking, not understanding when Double D flushed even darker and spit in his palm. In fact, it just served to confuse him further, as he knew Double D didn't approve of 'gross' habits like spitting, nor did he like being dirty at all. Even when Double D resumed stroking him, adding spit to his natural sweat, he did not understand why.

But then Double D was positioning them both, and he understood.

... Sort of.

_"'Cause I don't wanna feel alone."_

From his kneeling position before the toilet, Eddy glanced over at the haphazardly discarded clothes, eyes searching out the small patch of very dark crimson amid all the purple that had sent him to his knees.

But he could see only the purple of the shorts from where he was.

And he was grateful for that small mercy.

_"Tuesday morning..."_

Gasping. Moaning. The sheets scraped, skin slid over skin.

Ed knew, now, where the music Eddy and Double D made came from.

He knew.

_"In the dark..."_

He moved inside Double D, not grasping that this was sex, that this was what Eddy had feared, that Double D thought he was someone else. All he grasped, in that moment-

Was that this was beautiful.

_"We were finding out..."_

And when they came together, the release of tension and withheld emotion had an unexpected effect-

The veil over Double D's eyes finally dropped away.

_"...who we are."_

He froze, a tangle of messy, chaotic emotions warring within him as Ed (friend, comforter, lovable oaf, _not Eddy_) collapsed on top of him.

_"Tuesday morning..."_

Bile rose in Double D's throat, choking him. He was drowning again.

_"...in the dark..."_

Ed kissed the sweat on Double D's throat, salt mixing with honeysuckle and making a heady mixture he could taste with his bones. Double D jumped a little at the soft, intimate touch, and was suddenly wiggling out from under Ed, the tears in his eyes no longer unshed. He couldn't breathe, he was suffocating, he was drowning, he couldn't _breathe_...

Ed's brow furrowed as he watched Double D scramble around on the floor and quickly yank on his boxers, his breathing heavily labored, as though he'd just been running. Concerned, Ed reached for Double D, intending to quiet that panicked intensity with a gentle, soothing caress, but Double D jerked away from his hand with a strained but nonetheless carrying cry.

_"Don't!"_

_"We were finding out..."_

Ed drew his hand protectively back to his chest, too shocked even to cry. _That_ he had understood completely.

_"...who we are."_

Double D was suddenly stricken, horrified. He'd betrayed Eddy, hurt Ed, betrayed Eddy, stolen Ed's innocence, betrayed Eddy, taken advantage of Ed, _betrayed Eddy_-

With a keening wail not unlike the one he'd unleashed in the junkyard almost two days – had it really only been two days? It felt like a lifetime – ago, he raced into Ed's bathroom and fell to his knees before the toilet, retching.

Not knowing what else to do, Ed followed blindly.

_"Who we are..."_

He'd remembered, but he hadn't found his answers – and he hadn't really expected to.

Double D sat back on his heels and sobbed brokenly into his hands, wishing Ed wouldn't look at him, wouldn't stare. He was unworthy of being looked at. He was unworthy of everything... of anything.

Because he knew he must've known precisely who Ed was the entire time-

And he hadn't cared.

_"Oh..."_

He heard a whisper in his mind: "_whore_."

_"...oh..."_

And for the first time, he truly believed it.

_"Who we are..." _

Ed wanted to speak, but he didn't know what to say.

He wanted to cry, but he couldn't seem to remember how.

He wanted to touch Double D, but he knew that was no longer allowed – though he did not know why.

So he stared, feeling the rocks slipping beneath his feet again.

_"Who we are..."_

Double D finally lifted his head, the color in his eyes somehow gone, his pained whisper carrying into Ed's ears.

"I'm _sorry_, Ed. I'm so sorry."

_"Oh..."_

Ed could taste salt on his lips. Apparently his eyes had remembered how to cry.

_"Who we are..."_

Some part of them both, some very young part, died.


	15. Chapter 15 Feel Your Pain

Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Broken". The song belongs to Seether (&, I would assume, Amy Lee, for the version with her in it was kind of mixed with the regular version here) and the Eds belong to the Cartoon Network. Rated R for slash, foul language, violence, et all.

Special thanks, as ever, to darthelwig, for inspiring this story.

This chapter is dedicated to Ny Mosy (I swear I will not quit until this story is finished), and anyone else who has ever left me a review for this story. Every time I read someone's opinions on my baby, I end up writing even more. You have only yourselves to thank for anything you like about this story-

Though feel free to blame me for anything you hate. ('lol')

There are two episodes referenced in this chapter are: "Little Ed Blue", the one where Ed is in a foul mood, and "Who Let The Ed In?", the one where Ed has an imaginary friend.

Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

(-(-)-)

Feel (Your Pain)  
by Ghost Helwig

(-(-)-)

He was hidden in the branches of the tree, staring in Double D's window. Every couple of minutes, the image of the dried blood on Double D's shorts would rear up in his head and he'd have to grab the rough bark of the trunk to keep steady, to stop himself from falling.

Eddy only wished he'd been able to do that for Double D.

_"I wanted you to know..."_

Double D was just sitting quietly in the middle of his bed; if Eddy kept his body turned just right, he could peer through the branches at his best friend's pale, drawn face. And that he did, needing the connection, needing to see, trying in vain to find an excuse not to believe.

Without warning, Double D buried his head in his hands and began to laugh, sobbing laughter that cracked up out of his body, lightning and thunder combined in the laughter of one innocently disturbed boy. Eddy swallowed, hard. In the few days he'd been watching Double D like this, that happened quite a bit.

_"...that I love the way you laugh."_

He wanted to help, to so ease that obvious pain, to soothe that great distress, to mend Double D's bleeding heart. But when he'd really realized what he was seeing that night, when he'd _seen_, really _seen_, he'd run. And how he didn't know what to say, how to feel-

How to run _back_.

The despair he saw in every gesture Double D made, and even those he didn't make – how could he take that away? He was not the kind of person who was capable of healing.

But he wanted to be. He wanted.

_"I wanna hold you high..."_

Double D's slender fingers were tense, digging into his face, his long dark hair. Eddy wanted nothing more than to take those beautiful hands in his, to caress the soft palms, to kiss each abused finger, to worship until the end of time.

_"...and steal your pain away."_

He had a picture in his room, taken when Double D was sixteen, of Double D sitting in that same position – legs drawn up, head resting on his knees. Only the picture had been taken outside, and rather than clenching his face his hands had been holding a single wildflower Eddy had, in a moment of pure whimsy, given to him. That picture had pained him when they broke up, pained him so much that he took it down.

_"I keep your photograph..."_

It pained him more now, when he could see it in his head, and see that softly smiling young boy in it replaced by this sobbing, broken thing before him.

_"I know it serves me well."_

But it was good, to remember, to be reminded. It gave him a focus, something to hold onto, to guide him as he tried to find a way to dig them both out of this hell they'd fallen into. Thinking of the vast difference between the boy he'd known and the young man he saw now hurt him, but it also drove him on.

He owed it to that innocent boy to find out just what was wrong with that young man, and heal it-

If he could.

_"I wanna hold you high..."_

Because maybe... maybe if he were the one to heal Double D, maybe it would be his atonement for the pain he himself had _caused_ Double D...

And maybe then...

Maybe then Double D would take him back.

_"And steal your pain."_

Eddy was a selfish person at heart, he knew that, he'd always known that, and he was not above wanting this to help get Double D to come back to him...

And even if that didn't work, even if Double D still didn't want him, at least then Double D would be... _okay_. He'd be... _himself_... again.

That would be worth anything Eddy could give.

_"Because I'm broken..."_

And if Double D healed, perhaps he could as well.

_"When I'm lonesome..."_

The light in the sky was fading, drifting to black. Eddy could still see into Double D's room easily, by the simple fact that Double D no longer turned off his lights. Night or day, his bedroom light was on, and once night blanketed the rest of the house he no longer ventured into it until the sunlight was streaming through the windows again. His fastidiousness was strong enough to keep him from keeping all the lights in his house on, but it was not enough to completely overcome his fear.

Eddy knew this, because he'd been watching for all that time.

And the light kept falling, fading, falling...

Soon the only light was the one shining around Double D-

But that, to Eddy, was only fitting.

_"And I don't feel light..."_

He stared desolately in Double D's window, squinting, desperate to see Double D more, to watch him for a little longer, to lose himself in the cherished feel of actually... feeling.

_"...when you're gone away."_

As he stared, a deep, undamaged part of him kept trying to draw his attention to one very simple fact: Double D's body was in there, moving and laughing and crying and breathing, but Double D was not.

But he ignored it.

_"You're gone away..."_

Double D was settling in for the night, curling up around himself as he lay in bed. Eddy watched him as he laughed-cried himself to sleep, wishing, wanting...

_"You don't feel me..."_

He stared as Double D tossed and turned in bed, feeling trapped in the endless circle of his guilt, feeling that the thin glass that separated them was a chasm he could never hope to cross.

_"...here..."_

"I'm right here for you, Edd," he whispered into the unfeeling night air.

"I'm right here."

_"...anymore."_

When he finally climbed down the tree, his body was stiff, aching in so many ways – and yet strangely numb. He leaned against the gritty, rough bark, his head pounding with pain, with a sorrowing hurt. How could he fix this? _How_?

And would Double D even let him try?

_"The worst is over now..."_

He had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his hands balled into fists so tight they trembled, when he heard a soft voice speak up from behind him.

"You're going to do somethin' about it, arentcha' Eddy?"

_"...and we can breathe again..."_

Without opening his eyes he muttered, "about what, Jonny?"

A shifting, a rustling of clothing, and what sounded like a quickly drawn breath were the only responses Eddy heard, for a long time. It was so quiet for so long that he thought Jonny might have left, and was contemplating opening his tired eyes to check when Jonny finally spoke again.

_"I wanna hold you high..."_

"...about the night Double D screamed."

_"You steal my pain away."_

Eddy's eyes snapped open. He spun around to face Jonny, whose dark eyes glittered strangely through the shadows of the night as he clutched Plank to his chest for protection – those exactly whose protection, Jonny's or Plank's, was impossible to tell.

There was a sudden tightness in Eddy's own chest, and he was absolutely certain it was responsible for the abrupt blurring of his vision. It had to be.

_"There's so much left to learn..."_

It felt almost like anger, that strange, throbbing tightness. It felt like it – but he knew it wasn't.

But he wanted it to be. He very much _wanted_.

_"...and no one left to fight..."_

And even if it wasn't, that very fact _made_ him angry, everything about his life made him angry, and the sudden flow of hot, raging fury through his veins was a twisted form of relief.

_"...I wanna hold you high..."_

With as much forced calm as he could muster, he growled, "what're you talkin' about?"

From the look on Jonny's face, Eddy could tell he hadn't expected such a reply. But he rallied easily, a quality Eddy recognized from their childhood – another warped bit of comfort, that.

_"...and steal your pain."_

"Plank heard it," Jonny said solemnly, his death-grip on his wooden best friend easing only slightly. "The other night, when he was taking a walk in the alley behind Double D's house, he heard... he heard Double D scream."

Remembering that eerie wail he'd heard in the junkyard, Eddy's throat went dry.

_"'Cause I'm broken..."_

He almost couldn't get the words out; even licking his lips didn't help, didn't soothe the desert inside him. Nothing could turn that dry, parched heat inside him into a verdant garden; nothing that his lips could give, at any rate.

Double D's lips, though...

And it was perhaps thought of his absent lover that enabled him to squeeze those so-important words out of his barren mouth.

"D'you... d'you know why? D'you know why he... screamed?"

_"...when I'm open..."_

A quick – almost too quick – shake of his head was Jonny's only reply.

But his eyes... Something in them _spoke_ to Eddy, told him that the truth Jonny uttered with his lips was wrapped tightly around a vibrant, vibrating lie.

_"...and I don't feel like..."_

And suddenly the anger wasn't just flowing through his veins; it was _flying_. Jonny knew why Double D was suffering, he _knew_, and yet he did _nothing_...

Before either boy knew what was happening, Eddy's strong hands were wrapped none-too-gently around Jonny's slender throat.

_"...I am strong enough."_

"You _knew_," he growled as Jonny simply stood and stared with wide eyes, too shocked to do anything in his own defense. "You _knew_, and you did _nothing_. You worthless sack of-"

"Plank was _scared_, Eddy!" Jonny suddenly cried. "He _couldn't_ do anything!"

_"'Cause I'm broken..."_

Though it had gone on for as long as Eddy had known him, suddenly Jonny's thoughtless, ceaseless dependence on that uncomplicated wedge of harmless wood unnerved and further angered him. Was everyone he knew completely screwed-up? How had he never noticed?

_"...when I'm lonesome..."_

"It wasn't _Plank_, was it, Jonny-boy?" he spat bitterly. "It _couldn't_ have been Plank, because _Plank isn't real_!"

Instead of responding, the boy whose neck he still held firmly just pulled his only real friend protectively closer.

_"...and I don't feel right..."_

Eddy knew he should back off. He _knew_ that. But once started, the flame of his temper had never been easy to cool.

And beneath all the anger and the violence, he could see the stain of blood, the lowered eyes of a beautiful and cowed innocent, the spill of dark hair across pale skin that would never again be his. And it just...

Broke him.

_"...when you're gone away..."_

Thoughtlessly he shook Jonny, watching without really seeing as Jonny struggled and flailed, a fish doing its dance of death as it dangled hopelessly from the utterly ruthless fisherman's hook.

"Why didn't you _save_ him?" Eddy screamed, screaming at himself as he screamed at Jonny, lost to all reason, all rational thought-

All hope.

"He was your fuckin' _friend_, he was nice to you when the rest of us turned our backs, he _defended_ you, you little prick!"

_"...'cause I'm broken..."_

Perhaps it was the shouted insults that finally did it, or maybe it was the shock of having been handled in a deliberately violent manner by someone who was, however distantly, still a friend, but all too soon Jonny was yelling right back at him, his voice as strained as Eddy's was strident, as lost as Eddy's was furiously determined.

"There was nothing Plank could _do_! He _likes_ Double D, but he _knows _things, and he knew he couldn't help! He _wanted_ to, but he would've been _killed_!"

_"...when I'm open..."_

"By _who_?" Eddy growled. When Jonny's lips snapped shut, it was all Eddy could do to not wrench them back open with his bare hands and pull as hard as he could on Jonny's tongue until he told Eddy what he wanted – no, _needed_ – to know.

Instead, as his mind roved over possible ways to break Jonny's sudden telling silence, he remembered a different day, long ago, when Ed (_oh_, better not to think about Ed too much, that _hurt_, better to not) had been in his worst mood ever, until Jonny came by... And his eyes, quite literally, landed on the perfect solution.

_"...and I don't feel like..."_

He released Jonny's throat just so he could tear Plank from his arms, ignoring the younger boy's forlorn, furious cry. Glaring and scowling and clutching Plank against him in a sick parody of how Jonny had held Plank earlier, he muttered darkly, his voice glazed with the kind of utter, hopeless loathing he usually reserved for Kevin and Sarah.

Some part of him mourned that he used this voice with Jonny now, but the rest of him was too busy feverishly raging to care.

"Plank isn't _real_, Jonny. He's no more here than Ed's fuckin' friend _Jib_. He's a piece of _wood_, and wood can't _hear_! _You_ heard! _You're_ the one who knows what's going on! _You_! Not this stupid bit of lumber!"

_"...I am strong enough..."_

Rather than answer, tears welled up in Jonny's eyes – and that simple, open vulnerability drew Eddy's voice down into a semblance of furious calm.

"I can't help Double D if I don't know what happened to him," he bit out, the pain in his chest throbbing like a second heartbeat when he thought of how Double D had looked when last he saw him. "_He_ won't tell me. He won't... he won't talk to me." If his voice broke then, if it shattered and fell to pieces on the ground, Jonny was too kind to mention it – or to draw attention to the fact that Eddy had to gulp back tears three times before he could continue.

"He would never leave you in the lurch like this," Eddy said finally, bitterness evident in his tone. "He would never let you down."

_"'Cause I'm broken..."_

They stared at each other for the longest time, dark eyes bruised and panicking, light eyes demanding and still intensely furious. With no effort at all, Jonny took Plank back from Eddy's suddenly strengthless fingers, brushing imagined dirt from his best friend's crayon face.

As he watched, and finally _understood_, Eddy could actually _feel_ his heart get broken.

_"...when I'm lonesome..."_

Jonny turned away, but Eddy, panicked himself now, grabbed his arm and wrenched him back around. Pulling Jonny close, he hissed practically right into his face, shaking his trapped arm for emphasis.

"You saw something, didn't you? That's why you're so afraid." His eyes narrowed dangerously, flashing in the gloom with the heat of those perilously close to the edge-

And of the insane.

_"...and I don't feel right..."_

"Tell me!" he snarled, and even though not even the darkness could hide the genuine fear in Jonny's eyes he could not stop, could not let up.

"_Tell me what you know!_"

_"...when you're gone away."_

"Let me go!" Jonny cried, attempting to yank his arm from Eddy's grasp. Inside Eddy screamed at himself, raged and blamed, but all he could do was hold tight, hang on-

It seemed that was all he could do lately.

_"...'cause I'm broken..."_

He hung on.

_"...when I'm lonesome..."_

And finally, _finally_, Jonny whispered the words Eddy needed so badly, so desperately, to hear.

_"...and I don't feel right..."_

"I did see something," he admitted, obviously frantic, but still aware enough of his surroundings to keep his damaged voice low as he imparted his secret.

_"...when you're gone..."_

"Before Plank and I... before I heard Double D scream, I was walking by his house. And I... I saw someone go in."

His eyes pleaded with Eddy to let him go, to let him stop, but this close to the truth Eddy could not be deterred. He glared, glowered until Jonny finally went on.

_"...away..."_

"...I left after that," Jonny said. "And when I was passing by again about half an hour later, that's when I heard it. The scream."

Eddy was sorely tempted to shake him again, beyond furious for not receiving his answer-

When he realized with a start that he'd been concentrating so hard that he just hadn't heard it.

_"You've gone away..."_

Suddenly nerveless and numb he let Jonny go, hearing from a removed distance the pounding of Jonny's sandals on the sidewalk as he raced away, apparently not wanting to give Eddy another chance to trap him.

He needn't have worried. Eddy was in no state to do anything to anyone.

_"You don't feel..."_

A name kept running through his head, over and over and over again, a sick, twisted mantra that he didn't want to hear. For no reason he couldidentify he felt sick to his stomach, the honest loathing in his body making a mockery of him. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.

_"...me..."_

But it had to be. And that meant...

That meant so much.

_"...here..."_

He dug his ragged nails into his palms as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. This... _This_...

...was a fuckin' nightmare.

_"...anymore..."_

"God, Kevin," he whispered to the emotionless night, "how could you?"


	16. Chapter 16 Lonely Light Would Not Heal

Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Fallen". The Eds belong to the Cartoon network and the song belongs to Sarah McLachlan. Still rated R, though for things only referenced in this chapter. Again, for the thousandth time (say it with me now), _a slash story_.

Author's Notes - I must apologize for how long it took me to upload this chapter. I've been busy, with a job, my original fiction, and various illnesses (colds, mostly) that were _never_ serious but always annoying. I know that just sounds like a bunch of pathetic excuses, and I'm sorry for that, too. I hope to somehow begin managing my time a bit better.

This chapter is dedicated to two very special people – Mysticlynx and Embrio at deviantart. I love you both, and I didn't mean to disappear like that...

As always, special thanks to darthelwig for inspiring this story. You rock, dearest.

And thanks as well to everyone who has taken the time to review, or even just read this story. You make this hard work incredibly fulfilling.

This chapter ties directly into the last, and to the next few following it. Just thought I should point that out...

A final note – I've received a few reviews asking just when it was that Double D got raped. Though it was never explicitly stated until this last chapter that that was what had happened to him, I ask you to reread chapters ten through twelve for the information you seek. I tried to be subtle when writing that plot twist, but it seems that to some I was just plain unclear... Again, my apologies.

Well, that's more than enough of my rambling. Enjoy. Peace, all.

* * *

Lonely Light (Would Not Heal)

by Ghost Helwig

* * *

It had started out so... simply. A connection made when they were younger, strengthened as they grew older by the simple fact of their being the only one who truly understood the other – Ed could love them, unconditionally, purely, but understanding would never be one of his gifts. And they both loved him all the more for his gentle simplicity.

_"Heaven bent to take my hand..."_

But then... Double D could remember that first night, the pain Eddy had been in, his own fruitless attempts to comfort... And then a hand, misplaced, and a look held too long, and finally a clumsy kiss met his lips and stole them forever.

_"...and lead me through the fire."_

But now... Double D knew he'd betrayed that memory, betrayed both Eddy and Ed with his thoughtless idiocy, his innocent and damning mistake.

What was _wrong_ with him, that he could feel completely alone-

And then go out of his way to ensure that he stayed that way?

_"Be the long awaited answer..."_

And so now here he was, huddled on his bed at night, listening to the silence that forcefully permeated his house. It was always quiet here. The few times this place had been filled with loud, vibrating energy were the times his friends were visiting.

They were also the only times he felt at home here.

_"...to a long and painful fight."_

He tried to fight the tears, the knowledge, but it was all just too much – he was sobbing, laughing first, but then weeping like he always did-

Like he often felt he would always do.

_"__Truth be told..."_

It didn't help that he could feel _eyes_ on his skin, had been feeling watched since he'd run home from Ed's – was it only a few mornings ago? It felt like so much longer.

It felt like he had been here, suffering through this, living his cycle of guilty, broken grief, forever.

_"I've tried my best..."_

He'd tried so _hard_, too. Tried to be better than he was, prove the judgmental voices in his head (that sounded so, so much like his parents; he knew their voices better than their faces) wrong.

But he'd failed. Badly.

No wonder Eddy couldn't forgive him.

_"But somewhere along the way..."_

He fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning throughout the night, hearing raised voices even in his slumber. Resting no longer seemed to give him any... rest.

But that... was only right.

_"I got caught up in all there was to offer..."_

It was his own fault. He couldn't even remember _why_ anymore-

But it was.

_"...and the cost was so much more than I could bear."_

He'd lost everything. Eddy, Ed, his own sense of safety, his self-worth-

With a soft sigh he sat up in bed, staring blindly, desolately around at his hopelessly rumpled bedspread, his own thin, trembling hands.

_A breath_, he thought to himself. _Another.__ And another. A breath. _Breathe.

_"Though I've tried..."_

He got up, shaky on legs weak with stress, lack of food and sleep, and far too much fear, and began pulling everything off his bed. He moved mechanically, returning form and order to his bed, idly wishing it was that easy to redo the mistakes he'd made, to fix his broken life.

_"I've fallen..."_

And suddenly it was all _too much_, and he was racing downstairs, scrambling for the phone. Old sticky notes whirled off into the air in his wake, got crushed beneath his violently shaking palm. He dialed the number from memory – though he'd never used it before, the sticky note under his sweaty hand had glared the numbers up at him ever since he was a child...

He used to stare at that sticky note when he was sitting home alone at night, homework long since done, dinner eaten, and no one else around, to care for him, to put him to bed (_put him back together_), to love him...

_"I have sunk so low..."_

The phone rand once, twice. When he heard the distinctive _click_, his heart soared; for one all-too-brief, beautifully shining moment, he was not alone.

_"I messed up..."_

"We're sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected."

_"...better I should know..."_

The cold, recorded voice sliced into him, blew all his hopes to tiny pieces. Tears clouded his eyes, shock paralyzing his whole body. As the recording began again, he flung the receiver to the floor, the whole phone toppling off the table along with it.

_"So don't come 'round here..."_

He clenched his fists, a few random, frustrating (_frustrated_) tears falling down his cheeks. _Breathe_, he told himself. _Just_ breathe.

The shaking had invaded his entire being; it wasn't until the trembling had eased a little that he knelt down, replacing the phone neatly on the table. Through the receiver, he could still hear the robotic voice giving its icy message in a dull, pitiless momotone.

He hung up quickly.

_"...and tell me 'I told you so'..."_

Their number had changed, and they hadn't told him. That lifeline he'd always thought would be his, his safety net, his connection to them, was gone. _Severed_.

And a terrible, damning, too-easy-to-believe thought-

Had it ever really been there at all?

Was he really so bad, that not even his parents could love him?

_"We all begin with good intent..."_

He squeezed his eyes shut, biting his bottom lip between his teeth to hold in a scream of pure frustration. What exactly was it he had done to deserve this? Was he just _meant_ to be alone?

"Breathe," he whispered in a voice that shook as violently as he did, shook, wavered – fell apart. "_Breathe_."

_"Love was raw and young..."_

Funny how that was so very hard to do anymore.

_"We believed that we could change ourselves..."_

Nothing he'd ever done was enough. Not the good grades, or the perfect attendance – he'd even gone to school when he had strep throat, had thanked God that he fell ill with the chicken pox during the summer, and for _what_? Had they ever cared about anything he'd done, anything he'd achieved – even anything he'd, however rarely this came about, _failed_ at? Had they ever even _noticed_?

_"...the past could be undone..."_

He felt so... disappointed, all of a sudden. Not betrayed, not really, because to be betrayed one had to expect something from someone, but still _disappointed_. He'd always believed (secretly, in his heart of hearts, where not even Eddy knew him) that one day, if he was _just perfect enough_, they'd come through.

Was it really _so hard_ to love him? Was it really?

_"__But we carry on our backs..."_

Eddy might think so, Double D thought, feeling inexplicably chilled.

Yes, if anyone had a real reason to, it would be Eddy.

_"...the burden time always reveals..."_

He stood, uncertain on his own feet, uncertain – _uncomfortable_ – in his own skin. Early morning sunlight, tinted pink and gold, gently streamed in through the windows, caught in his unbound dark hair and streaked over his flushed cheeks, but it didn't warm him.

_"__...in the lonely light of morning..."_

Outside, a bird gave a particularly loud squawk, and he whirled around, throwing himself backwards. He slammed into the wall, hard, sticky notes catching and pulling at his hair. He pulled them out with impatient fingers.

_"...in the wound that would not heal..."_

He wanted so badly to be free of his pain-

It was too bad his pain showed no interest in abandoning him.

_"It's the bitter taste of losing everything..."_

As a small act of defiance, he dropped the sticky notes to the unyielding floor, where they fluttered down atop those that had already fallen.

_Breathe_, he thought again, because he suddenly couldn't.

_"...I held so dear."_

His back throbbed as he pushed himself away from the wall, running one pale hand through the sweaty darkness of his hair. He was still shivering; he couldn't seem to stop.

_"I've fallen..."_

He walked into his kitchen, staring blankly around at the familiar blue walls, yellow sticky notes scattered haphazardly around, a mess one wouldn't think his stern, sternly controlled parents would allow. And yet, it was _their_ mess; their sickness.

He had never felt less like he belonged there, like he belonged with _them_, in his whole life.

_"I have sunk so low..."_

He'd spent his every single moment here trying to turn this house into a home, with no help from anyone. When Ed and Eddy were there-

He stopped, choked. His own thoughts choked him; he couldn't think of Ed and Eddy without a debilitating ache centering in his chest, clenching his lungs, his heart.

_"...I messed up..."_

He wished, suddenly, that he could call someone, _anyone_, just anyone who would listen. Anyone who could tell him what to do, what to say, how he was supposed to be feeling...

Because he no longer trusted himself to do anything right-

Even feel.

_"Better I should know."_

A few hours later, and he was still standing there, sunlight chasing itself over the tiled floor. He probably would've stayed standing there, locked in place, had there not been a harsh knocking on his front door.

_"So don't come 'round here..."_

His jaw trembled, his whole body spasming, preparing deep in his bones to flee. It was another few minutes before he realized the pounding of his heart had distracted him from the continuous pounding on his door.

_"And tell me 'I told you so'..."_

Instead of running for the front door, he raced upstairs, panting and sobbing for air. Behind him, he could hear his front door opening, hear footsteps and eerie, sneering laughter floating up at him...

"N-no," he gasped. "_No_."

_"Oh..."_

He tripped and fell, slamming hard into the stairs. Heavy footsteps sounded behind him, moving faster, thumping violently into the stairs now that he was down, vulnerable. He cried out, lurched forward-

And fell to his knees on the cold kitchen floor.

_"Heaven bent to take my hand..."_

He blinked, ran a shaky hand through his hair (he hated having his hair down for many reasons, one of which was that it allowed him a nervous habit he'd done everything in childhood to curb) as he rose to his feet, all natural grace gone. He was hallucinating now, apparently – and wasn't that just... fitting?

He had lived through so many _true_ horrors – why not live through a few unreal ones as well?

_"Nowhere left to turn..."_

Carefully he climbed upstairs, blind to most everything, feeling nothing but the fine trembling in his bones. Before he entered his bedroom, he stopped only once, to glance numbly out a window.

There were people gathered outside, in the middle of the street. A veritable crowd. Curious despite himself, he leaned forward, staring down with wide, innocent eyes.

His friends were down there. He saw Sarah's bright mop, Nazz's golden tresses, Eddy's-

_Eddy_.

_"I'm lost to those I thought were friends..."_

Hurriedly he backed away from the window, stumbling into his bedroom. He didn't care why everyone was down there; no, he didn't care at all.

"Breathe," he whispered. "Please, just breathe."

_"...to everyone I know..."_

It didn't occur to him until he was getting ready for his first scaldingly hot shower of the day that they weren't gathered in the middle of the cul-de-sac, but directly in front of his out-of-the-way house. He reminded himself that he didn't care, and tried his best to put it out of his head. (But _Eddy_ was down there; he could feel Eddy's heart beating against his skin, as he had when they were together, feel it like a second skin, a thump-thump that caressed his very flesh.)

Because it didn't matter (_Eddy, please, I miss you_) – he couldn't afford to let it.

_"Oh, they turned their heads..."_

After all – what was he to them anymore, to those once-friends who'd always shunned him but never really _hurt_ him? Just a big joke, a forgotten and useless trick, a broken toy. The village fag.

_"...embarrassed..."_

He remembered being at Nazz's Fourth of July party after everything had happened, after being beaten and left to suffer in the rain. He'd made his peace with it before, easily, but now... He remembered, and he knew now what it all meant.

The little companionship they'd ever offered was being taken away. He was just too _different_. They could never accept it – accept _him_.

On that day, they'd seen his pain and ignored it.

_"Pretend that they don't see..."_

On that day, they'd proven that his only friends were Ed and Eddy-

_"But it's one missed step..."_

And he'd very effectively, very neatly rid himself of _them_.

_"...you'll slip before you know it."_

If he could make it up to them, he would. In a heartbeat.

But life was not that easy; he knew that. When you burned your bridges to ash, what was left for you to rebuild from?

_"And there doesn't seem a way to be redeemed."_

Hope... He needed to find hope again.

But... did he even deserve to?

_"Though I've tried..."_

He glanced up, suddenly, finding himself on his knees in the shower. Burning water poured all around him (hotter even than his remembrances of past embraces, Eddy, _breathe_, Eddy, _just **breathe**_), scorching his already aching skin, but the ice in his chest didn't melt at all...

Tense and uneasy, Double D wiped at his eyes. Were those tears on his cheeks, or just drops of water from the shower, warm on his still-iced flesh?

He couldn't even tell.

_"I've fallen..."_

And moreover, he didn't even care.

_"...I have sunk so low..."_

He dried himself off quickly, hating every second he spent unclothed (yet he still showered multiple times a day – he never bothered trying to make logical sense of his neuroses anymore, the only thing in his life given that special, strange freedom, especially since the day he'd been – just especially). He shivered from both nerves and the unshakable cold inside him, body atremble and alert for any small, unaccounted-for noise, any sound that would tell him he was no longer alone...

But there was nothing.

_"I messed up..."_

Was that a blessing, or a curse?

_"...better I should know."_

He couldn't tell that anymore, either.

With a restless sigh he went back into his bedroom, glancing anxiously at the window (_Eddy_) before grabbing his hairbrush from the top of his dresser.

Though he was frightened now, constantly, _always_, by the world outside his house, he couldn't bear to shut the blinds on it. Despite himself, despite everything, despite even how _watched_ he suspected it contributed to him feeling, he couldn't shut out the world that way.

No matter how crestfallen and dejected he was, he could not turn his back on the little bit of love he knew Ed and even Eddy still held for him.

_"So don't come 'round here..."_

And closing the blinds would be closing them off, shutting them out. It would be boxing himself in. It would be accepting that the rest of his life would be spent living in cold, lonely fear.

And it would be letting the darkness inside him, the darkness he had not put there, win.

He couldn't do that, any of that. Even though he knew he was expected to.

_"...and tell me..."_

He could hear high-pitched, mocking laughter echoing in his head. He tried to ignore it.

_"'I told you so'..."_

He walked, falsely calm, to his bed, plopping unceremoniously down on its perfectly-made surface. He ran the brush through his slowly drying hair, bristles tickling, scratching, his skull, even though he was gentle (he had sensitive skin, a fact Eddy had always both simultaneously appreciated and exploited, to his cocky, satisfied enjoyment and Double D's own quiet, blushing pleasure). The brush both soothed and agitated Double D at once, with its tender touches and seething hot memories and impersonal feel, the weight of his hair pulling his head down – at least, that's what he would have claimed made him lower his darkened gaze to the blanket, had anyone been around to ask.

His hair spilled in front of his eyes, hiding them in concealing shadows as he started to cry.

_"...oh..."_

The brush fell to the bedspread, dropped from powerless, hopelessly trembling fingers that instantly moved to cover his face; moved to hide him. He sobbed into his hands until he'd wept himself dry, and weary.

_"...I messed up..."_

Shaking – he was still shaking, as though he still cried. He shifted around until he could pull the blankets up and over himself, huddling under them with only his head peeking out.

So much knowledge swirled around in his head, theorems, equations, wisdom gleaned from books and people and the observations he formed with his own formidable mind, rattling around and setting off more brainstorms when they collided, more fonts of knowledge blooming in him every second, a meteor shower of facts and data and intelligent, reasoned reflections on reality-

Yet none of it helped him at all.

_"...better I should know..."_

His gaze drifted again to the window. They were out there-

Yes. _They_ were out there.

All of them.

_"Don't come 'round here..."_

"_Breathe_," he whispered – and it came out as a breathless gasp, a plea; heartfelt, and broken.

"Just _breathe_, Eddward."

_"And tell me..."_

"_Breathe_."

_"...'I told you so'..."_

Hopefully, just saying it would keep him from stopping.


	17. Chapter 17 Cooling

Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "The Leaving Song". AKA Cartoon and the Cartoon Network own the Eds; A.F.I. owns the song. Still rated R – er, _M_ – for violence, language, sexual situations (references only in this chapter), and copious amounts of slash.

That's right, _slash_. Big surprise from me, I'm sure.

Also, to River rain and anyone else who thought I'd given up – I apologize for how incredibly long the wait has been. Please continue to be patient – the chapters may take this side of forever to go up, but they will, in fact, go up.

And a huge thank you to all of you for your kind words and support. When writing this gets to be its hardest, you help me to soldier on.

Special thanks, as ever, to darthelwig, without whom I never would have begun this journey. I couldn't do it without you, sis.

More special thanks to Mysticlynx, for looking over the unfinished first draft of this chapter and catching a very important mistake. Thank you muchly, dearest.

This chapter is dedicated to all of you Eds lovers out there, whether you're a fan of this story or not – I hope everyone is watching the new episodes, and loving them as much as I do.

Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

0-0-0

Cooling

by Ghost Helwig

0-0-0

"_Walked away..."_

Anger curled in Eddy's throat, slid its slippery tendrils into his mouth. He'd let his rage stew all night, and by now it was whirling around him, blinding his eyes.

_"Heard them say..."_

He'd tried watching television, but early morning shows did nothing to distract him. All they did, with their insipid, cartoon-y violence or vaulted, righteous (_self_-righteous) preaching or jumbled sports jargon or divisive, (unrealistic) black-and-white news, was piss him off even further.

He turned the television off, slammed his way into his bedroom. There was a pounding in his head, in his chest, in his heart, a pounding like the rush of blood through his veins, and as he flopped onto his bed he found himself wanting to scream with the pure _frustration_ of it all. That fucking _pounding_ was driving him mad.

"'_Poison hearts will never change._ '"

He couldn't help Double D anymore, that was certain. But did that mean he just had to _sit_ here, sit on this knowledge and not do a thing about it? Just let Kevin (fucking perfect-ass _Kevin_, who had betrayed Double D - prick, _fucking_ prick, _I'll kill you_) get away with what he'd done?

Intolerable.

He couldn't _help_ Double D, that was true.

But he could _avenge_ him.

"_Walk away again."_

He could see, in his mind's eye, that cold, hollow tomb where Double D was held up, his so-called '_home'_. Ever since the night he'd first touched Double D, first made love to him, he'd thought Double D's house, his bedroom, and especially his bed to be – _nearly_ - off-limits, too sacred somehow to touch, lest he sully them. (When they made love there, it was _that_, it was '_making love'_ – sex was something they did on Eddy's bed, in Nazz's bathroom, once out by the lake late at night, with no one else around; it had to be making love when on Double D's bed, because only love could touch something so pure.)

But then he'd found the evidence of a cruel, vile sin in Double D's bathroom, curse words painted in blood on a church. It was blasphemy, the only kind Eddy still believed in.

_"Turned away..."_

Double D's home as well as his body had been violated. Eddy could barely stomach the _thought_ of it - it lay heavy in the pit of his belly, a living thing, mold, pulsing.

And Double D - he had to deal with not only the thought, but the _reality_.

It galled.

"_...in disgrace..."_

He was out of the house and into the street before he thought anything through. And as he stood in the middle of the road, early morning sunlight streaking the sky pink and gold, he realized he had only one thing, in his whole life, left to lose.

_"Felt the chill upon my face..."_

And for once, it was something he actually wanted gone.

"_Cooling from within."_

His own fears, his lies, his _mask _- all worthless, now. All absolutely fucking _worthless_.

Compared to Double D's pain, _everything_ was worthless.

_"It's hard to notice..."_

He waited, shifting from foot to foot, still standing in the middle of the street. He needed a plan, needed to think of a way to confront Kevin - but planning had never been his strong suit. He preferred the quick rush of adrenaline, the release of pent-up tension, stressed muscles and flying fists-

And as it happened, that was _exactly_ what he thought Kevin deserved.

"_...gleaming from the sky..."_

And then he saw it - Kevin, turning the corner into the cul-de-sac, familiar red cap perched on his head and Rolf walking along at his side.

And suddenly Eddy was running.

"_...when you're staring at the cracks..."_

Had he had more breath in his lungs, he would've been screaming - had he not been so furious, raging gaze seeing only the red of his vision, the red of Kevin's hat, he would've seen Nazz and Sarah, just exiting Nazz's house and staring at him in bewilderment as he passed.

But all Eddy could see, could think and feel, was the _red_.

_"Hard to notice..."_

Kevin and Rolf were laughing. Eddy hadn't heard Double D laugh in _months_.

That alone was enough to send his fist crashing into Kevin's face.

"_...what is passing by..."_

As Kevin hit the ground, Eddy heard Nazz shriek Kevin's name, heard the pounding footsteps that heralded the coming of the two girls to see what was going on. Rolf was just staring in shock at him, while on the ground Kevin slowly sat up, eyes glazed with both shock and pain.

Smiling, sickly _smiling_, inside, Eddy kicked Kevin hard in the nose. Blood splattered his shoe, and suddenly the smile was all over his face.

"_...with eyes lowered."_

Rolf growled and made a grab for him, but Eddy twisted away, kicking out at Kevin again and connecting with his shoulder. As Kevin fell back and hit the concrete, Eddy _knew_, in his heart, that Double D would disapprove of this, no matter what Kevin had done.

_"You..."_

_Fuck it_, Eddy thought with an inner pang, a sourness settling in his heart.

_He already hates me anyway_.

"_Walked away..."_

He aimed another kick at Kevin's forehead, hoping to hit his eyes, maybe puncture them, make him really _bleed_, really _die_ - only Kevin's quick reflexes, finally working, saved him.

Saved _him_, as Double D had never been saved.

Eddy screamed, a sound more pain than communication, and kicked at him again.

_"Heard them say..."_

Kevin grabbed his foot and pulled. Eddy landed flat on his back, winded and furious, cool asphalt only furthering to ignite, not cool, his raging temper. He was up and on Kevin before either of them could recover enough to think.

"'_Poisoned hearts will never change._ _'"_

_I _hate _you_, he thought wildly. _I hate you, I hate you, I really fucking _hate _you_.

He couldn't even tell if he was talking to Kevin-

Or himself.

"_Walk away again."_

Behind him, he heard more pounding footsteps, then a strident cry of "Eddy, _stop it_!" It galled him. How could Jonny ask him to stop, knowing what he knew?

He punched Kevin in the face as he straddled his body, punched him again and again, feeling his fingers sliding in blood.

_"All the cracks will lead..."_

As Rolf's arms roughly wrapped around his waist and he was yanked off of Kevin, he wondered where Jimmy was, where Ed was-

Where Double D was.

"_Right to me..."_

With all his heart, he hoped that behind those empty windows, Double D hadn't been watching.

_"And all the cracks will crawl..."_

Kevin wasn't smiling. It was a surprise; with his body held basically in check by Rolf and the fire draining out of him the longer he thought of Double D, Kevin should've been fucking _smug_. He was _always_ fucking smug.

But Kevin wasn't smiling, and Nazz and Sarah and Jimmy (_when the hell did he get here?_) and Jonny weren't smiling, and though he couldn't see him Eddy would've bet Rolf wasn't smiling, either.

So _he_ smiled, for all of them.

"_...right through me..."_

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kevin snapped. And all Eddy could do was try his hardest not to laugh.

What was wrong with him? It would take _years_ to answer that question.

_"All the cracks..."_

Or maybe...

It would take three syllables.

"_...they lead..."_

"Double D."

"_...right to me."_

Kevin was staring at him, they were _all_ staring at him, and Eddy couldn't figure out why. He'd answered their stupid question. Were they that _blind_, that they didn't understand?

Apparently they were.

"Idiots," he muttered, "the lot of you."

_"And all the cracks..."_

"You and Double Drip have a fight?" Kevin looked honestly confused, even though anger still _burned_ in his eyes, honestly _curious_, as though he wanted to know before he bashed Eddy's skull in.

And Eddy's thin, thin temper snapped all over again.

How _dare_ Kevin even _ask_ him that?

"_...will crawl..."_

"Like _you don't **know**_," he growled. "This is all _your_ fault! _You_ did this! It all started _because of **you**_."

A flash in his mind, an image. A party, Double D smiled his drop dead gorgeous smile at Kevin, who smiled and dared to touch his skin - then all Eddy could see was _red_ (that damnable, damning _red_). Another flash, something he hadn't seen but could only too easily imagine, Kevin using his jock-boy strength to throw Double D down onto his bed, _screaming_-

And another flash, this time of Double D's innocent surprise when Eddy grabbed his face and _kissed_ him, and the way Eddy could feel him all over for _days_ afterwards-

All because of _Kevin_. Fucking perfect _Kevin_.

"_...right through me."_

"_You_ did it," he muttered, and it would be hours before he realized that the shock on Kevin's face could be blamed on seeing him begin to cry.

"You ruined... _everything_."

"_...and I fell apart."_

Kevin's eyes were very, very dark; his whole face was shadowed. It was impossible to tell what was going on behind that untouchable, _untouched_ mask.

Not that it mattered much, because Eddy was no longer seeing him anyway.

"_As I..."_

His gaze had been drawn inexorably back to Double D's window; no light shown through it, but for a moment, a flicker at an upper window, and Eddy could swear Double D was behind those gauze curtains, was about to look out, to look down on him like some stupid mythical princess looking down on her handsome prince – which was ridiculous, because Double D, odd girly habits like cleanliness and fussiness aside, was no girl, and Eddy knew he was no freaking _prince_...

Perhaps it was that split-second distraction that allowed Kevin to land such a devastating first blow.

"_Walked away..."_

Eddy landed hard on the ground, felt something give in his shoulder – he knew even without Double D's medical expertise that it would hurt in about ten seconds, when the shock wore off.

And it certainly did.

As he rolled away from Kevin's feet kicking at him, tried to avoid Rolf's strong workman's hands that grabbed for him, he heard pounding footsteps again-

_Goddammit, Jonny, when will you ever learn to stop running away?_

"_...heard them say..."_

He thought maybe Nazz was screaming at them to stop. For a second, that young child who adored her soared inside him, hope flared-

Then he realized – _he_ was the one screaming. But on the inside.

He would not give either of the people hitting him – _any_ of them, the whole damn cul-de-sac – the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

But then he did hear a voice - and how much easier it was, to hear that voice, than to pay attention to the pain his body was in (_it turned out, he couldn't roll that quickly, couldn't escape either firm hands or hard sneakers_). And it made him want to scream for an entirely different reason.

"God, this is stupid." Sarah, of course. "C'mon, Nazz, let's go."

"No." Softly. With a sad, liquid sort of grace.

"I... need to see this."

"'_Poisoned hearts will never change.'"_

Sarah gave a very put-upon sigh, and walked off, feet stomping hard down the street. But Eddy didn't care about that, or her, _fuck_ her, she'd let Double D down too, and been a bitch to Ed besides, and either way who could care about her when Nazz had – when Nazz _had_ –

When Nazz had stood by, crying quietly, as Kevin and Rolf beat him into the pavement.

"_...walked away again."_

He'd twisted to try and scramble away, to get towards her and maybe spit in her betraying face – but he couldn't, now. Not now that he'd seen her face. He could only lay as curled as possible, blinking up at her through sweaty, blood-spattered hair, his nose oozing steadily and his eyes wet and he could feel rain on his skin, cool and sweet and thoroughly drenching him, even though the sun was just coming out and the sky was quickly becoming a perfect clear blue...

She looked at him, and the unfamiliar emotion in her eyes was worse than a smile would have been. Then Kevin kicked him so hard in the side his eyes blurred with pain and tears, so hard he couldn't see or think or breathe-

And by the time he had a chance to look again, she had gone.

"_Turned away..."_

Kevin and Rolf, their audience disbanded, soon grew tired of their attack, and stopped after one more kick to the small of his back each. Eddy watched, breathing rough and uneven, as Kevin casually fixed his hat with one shaky, blood-spattered hand. (_And why are you _shaking_, you fucking pervert? Are you thinking about what you did to him?_)

But he knew better than to think Kevin was _feeling_ any of this. Like Kevin would care about Double D at all, like he _ever_ cared (_Double D _trusted _you, you fucking bastard_) -

And Rolf didn't, either, that was blatantly obvious (..._just like he trusted _me) -

They spoke quietly to each other for a minute – Eddy was too tired to even pretend to care what was said. _Hell, they were probably in it together – probably set Double D up – the whole fucking cul-de-sac hates us-_

Rolf walked off, but Kevin bent low, obviously intent on speech and leaning over Eddy – who smiled viciously, despite the pain, when he saw the marks his fists had made connecting with Kevin's skin. (_Red marred pale, turned swiftly to darkening purple, and the colors were more beautiful and satisfying than those of a misleading rainbow – he'd searched for years, and never found a pot of gold to saturate his life with riches; the only gold he'd ever had rested, still and always, in Double D._)

Whatever Kevin had been about to say, he kept to himself upon seeing that look; instead, he paused for a moment, then took careful aim-

And spit directly into Eddy's eyes.

"_...in disgrace..."_

"And you can send _that_," he said, voice low and slick; brutal, "to your precious Double D."

"_...felt the chill upon my face..."_

Kevin walked away. Sunshine, still light and cool but warming the ground (_though it could not warm him, not his skin, not anything of his_), shot daggers into his eyes – but he stared up into the sky anyway, as if it wasn't even there.

And the rain in Eddy's head kept falling... falling.

Everything was just... falling.

"_...cooling from within."_

"I knew it would rain."


	18. Chapter 18 Those Not So Blessed

Disclaimer - I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Beautiful". The Eds belong to AKA Cartoon, the Cartoon Network, and basically anybody but me. The song belongs to Joydrop.

Rated M for slash, adult situations, language, my heavy-handed angst - I'm sure all of you know the drill if you've read this far.

Author's Notes - So… Um… Hi?

'lol'

I know it's been _forever_ - years, I think - but I meant what I said; I never forgot this story. And I've picked it up right where I left off. On that note, _you may want to re-read the last chapter or two in order to fully understand this one_. It's not necessary, I don't think, but as there was such a huge gap in time between when I wrote this one and the last one, it might help. Especially since they take place at the same time…

Thank you all for the lovely comments you've left here in my absence. I am truly, truly sorry for the long, _long_ wait. I hope to continue writing this story again at a rapid rate. Only time will tell.

Also, the biggest thanks for this chapter goes to KisaShikaObsessed (please check her out on deviantart) for sending me a lovely piece of fanart to go along with this fic. Not only was I completely flattered, but her picture and kind words about this story inspired me to _finally_ finish the chapter sitting on my desktop. The picture can be found on her deviantart account (it's called "Losing You Beneath My Skin"... Sound familiar? Heh), and at my website (which is changing addresses as yahoo is deleting their free accounts). Please, send her some love.

This fic is also dedicated to darthelwig, without whom it would not exist.

All that said… Enjoy. Peace, all.

-----

Those Not So Blessed

By Ghost Helwig

-----

"You know, Sarah, if you'd just style your hair every once in a while, I bet Jimmy would like it."

Sarah wondered, briefly, why Nazz thought she would care. But in the end, as her eyes wandered over the golden hair that kept Nazz's eyes from quite looking at her, she decided that it didn't really matter.

_ "If I was beautiful like you..."_

She kept looking, even when Nazz started to move, shifting on her bed to a more comfortable position with her long legs hanging over the side. She gestured with one hand, and Sarah slid over, closer, fingers catching on little rough spots on the carpet. Her floor had seen rough usage, what with her own rambunctiousness and having the blundering, fumbling Ed for a brother, but she preferred to sit here when Nazz came over, let the older girl with her older aura and her overwhelming presence take up her bed because honestly, she couldn't bear to sit in such a private space with her.

It made no sense, really. But Sarah never worried about making sense; she just worried about somehow remaining '_her'_.

_"...oh, the things I would do."_

Sometimes she wondered why she bothered. She never really liked '_her'_, anyway.

Her eyes lit on Nazz's silent lips, her soft face, for a moment, before she followed Nazz's imperious gesturing and turned away.

Sometimes, it bothered her that she couldn't find it within herself to not like _her_.

_ "Those not so blessed..."_

After all, she knew who Nazz was, saw all that she did, everyone she inadvertently hurt (because Nazz never _meant_ to do _anything_, you see; she wasn't cruel, no sir, just stupid and blind)-

_ "...would be crying out_ 'murder'.._."_

And she still loved her.

Still wanted to be _like_ her.

_ "...And I'd just laugh..."_

But then, Sarah knew that deep inside, she didn't care about hurting other people.

_"...And get away with it too..."_

_I'm heartless and she's blind_, she thought, a strange bitterness enveloping her chest as she watched Nazz finger comb her perfect hair. Every move Nazz made was executed flawlessly, yet without a hint of calculation behind it – one day, Sarah hoped to know the secret of how that was possible. (_Only then could she emulate it successfully._)

_What a pair we make._

"_...like you do._"

"If only," she muttered to herself, "I could... find the way to be like you." Nazz met her gaze, eyes raindrops in a blue sky, and smiled.

"Well you'll never find it," she said softly, "if you're looking for it."

_ "If I was beautiful like you..."_

_Cryptic. How terribly like her_. As if she really knew Nazz at all. As if she wanted to. As if she _could_, if she did.

Outside, the air was probably cleaner. Less stifling. She convinced Nazz to take a walk with her, out into the open where Sarah could be anything but.

_"I would never be at fault…"_

They left the house together, just in time to see eddy tearing by on the sidewalk, in a race to who-knew-where. Not that Sarah cared where he was going, either.

Still, she watched Nazz's face out of the corner of her eyes- composed, resolute, as always. Sarah knew something had gone on between Nazz and Eddy, something that put more disdain than usual in Nazz's eyes when he came up in conversation, but she had no idea what it was. Nazz had many secrets, and Sarah had never been allowed to know even one.

_She never tells the truth. And I never could lie to anyone but my parents._

_ And Ed._

But Ed mattered less to both of them than even Eddy.

_ "I would walk in the rain…"_

But they both turned to watch Eddy, just in time to see him hit Kevin so hard Kevin fell to the sidewalk. Nazz's scream of Kevin's name ripped through Sarah's eardrums. Despite the pain, she raced forward beside Nazz, letting her feet fall into rhythm with the older girl's. She was faster than Nazz, more athletic, but she never did feel right beating her in anything at all.

And even though it was bright out, when Eddy's foot connected hard with Kevin's face, a cold wind blew through Sarah's insides.

_ "…between the raindrops…"_

She should care about this, probably. She watched Rolf trying - and failing - to stop Eddy, and knew she should probably care. It was fun watching Eddy get his ass handed to him, which he would (_idiot, attacking Kevin with _Rolf_ **right there**_), and at the very least, Kevin's pain ought to move her. He was her friend… Kind of. She should probably care.

But the cold wind blew, and she felt nothing at all.

_ "…bringing traffic to a halt."_

Nazz cared. Nazz was practically beside herself, clinging to Sarah's arm and staring at the scene before her with wide blue eyes. Sarah wondered briefly if Nazz even understood how fake she looked in that moment. Or maybe Nazz only looked like a painted mannequin to _her_.

_ "But that will never be."_

Eddy screamed, a terrible, haunted sound. Sarah froze upon hearing it, trying to see Eddy's face, see what caused that horrible wail. Kevin unintentionally obliged her, pulling Eddy to the ground by his foot. But even though she could see his face, she didn't know Eddy well enough to read whatever emotion was behind the anger in his eyes.

_"That will never, never be…"_

And beside her, Nazz abruptly straightened, smoothing her skirt and releasing her death-grip on Sarah's arm. Sarah watched her, and for once she could practically see the turn of Nazz's thoughts written all over her pretty face.

_She thinks this is about her._

_ "'Cause I'm not beautiful like you…"_

_And the sickest part is, it probably is._

_ "I'm beautiful like me."_

_No, Sarah. Be honest._

_ The sickest part is that you wish this was about _you.

_ "…Beautiful like me…"_

Jonny ran up beside them, close enough that the wind of his passing stirred Sarah's hair. He cried out, a plea for Eddy to stop, and Sarah wanted to laugh. While Nazz preened and she didn't care, Jonny actually gave a damn. Who said women were the weaker sex?

_"If I was beautiful like you…"_

Eddy was punching Kevin in the face, over and over. Rolf finally pulled him off, and during the struggle Jimmy walked quietly up behind Sarah. She felt his presence, and reached behind her to take his fingers in hers and pull him closer. He came willingly, his fingers cold against her skin.

She glanced at his face, but the wicked gleam in his eyes made her turn away.

_"I'd be quick to assume…"_

She turned back in time to see a now trapped Eddy _smiling_ at the group of them, his teeth bared, his blue eyes gone dark and wild. If Sarah hadn't trained every muscle in her body to be numb to fear, she might have backed off a step or two. That look was not entirely sane.

But apparently she was the only one to think so, as Kevin addressed Eddy readily enough, making conversation as though Eddy hadn't just been trying to kill him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

_ "They'd do anything to please me…"_

_I'm a money-grubbing lunatic whose only friends are even dorkier than I am, and I've jacked off to your girlfriend's picture so many times my hands are probably calloused. Just like every other stinkin' boy in this neighborhood._

_ Oh, and I'm insecure about my height, too_.

_"Why not?"_

She looked over at Nazz, just in time to see a small smile grace her perfect lips. Her thoughts probably weren't all that different from Sarah's own, then.

_Except with an 'I feel pretty' thrown in there somewhere, too._

_"I see the reaction when you walk into the room."_

And why not? Everyone loved her. She could tear the whole cul-de-sac apart with her looks if she wanted to. Only Rolf had ever remained immune to her… Rolf, and Jimmy.

Sarah squeezed Jimmy's hand. _Thank God for small favors_.

_ "But that will never be."_

And then… Eddy opened his mouth.

_"That will never, never be."_

"Double D."

_"'Cause I'm not beautiful like you."_

Everyone stared at Eddy for a moment, including Sarah. She could feel laughter welling inside her, and had to use all her willpower to restrain the urge to give in and laugh out loud. Of _course_ it was about Double D. Of _course_.

_Nazz may _think_ she's the fairest one of all, but she isn't really_.

_"I'm beautiful like me."_

"Idiots, the lot of you," Sarah heard Eddy whisper. And for once, she completely agreed with him.

_ "Beautiful like me."_

Sarah heard Kevin question Eddy, but her attention had been momentarily drawn away by the look in Jimmy's eyes as he watched them. He was so intent, so focused… She tried to remember the blast time he'd looked at her with such furious intensity.

_ "Beautiful…"_

And then tried not to let it bother her when she couldn't remember anything.

_"…beautiful like me…"_

Eddy was blaming Kevin now, blaming him for… _something_. Sarah had no idea what he was talking about, and even though she wasn't looking at him his loud voice was grabbing her focus and grating on her nerves. He blamed Kevin for _everything_ - how, exactly, was this different from any other day?

_Take some responsibility for yourself, idiot. Before you forget how._

_"…like me…"_

_And then you'll be me._

_"Like me."_

Her eyes were drawn back to Eddy's face against her will. It wasn't a pretty picture. Red-rimmed eyes, a hint of sleepless color under them, tear-stained cheeks… He barely looked like _Eddy_ anymore.

Yet he still looked uncomfortably familiar.

_"If I was beautiful like you…"_

Eddy wasn't sobbing, but his voice came out sounding very unlike him- full of pain, strained… broken.

"You ruined… _everything_."

"_I'd have so many friends."_

Also despite herself, Sarah understood.

_"All fighting for my time…"_

_Kevin and Nazz… The perfect people. They're not like you and me. They'll never know what it's like to be hated. To be ignored. To have the world _not_ fall at their feet every time they enter a room._

_"…to be next in line…"_

_But I don't want to have anything in common with you_, she thought, watching Kevin land his first punch, which sent Eddy straight to the ground (_just as expected_).

_I _can't _have anything in common with you._

_"So if I hurt one…"_

_You're _weak.

_"I wouldn't have to make amends."_

Kevin and Rolf were really laying into Eddy now, the sounds of their feet connecting with his soft flesh the perfect counterpoint to the sound of Jonny running away. _Another weakling_.

"God, this is stupid," Sarah heard herself saying. And it really was. "C'mon, Nazz, let's go."

And now that they both knew this had nothing to do with her, Sarah was certain Nazz would agree- if this wasn't about her, what was the point of her staying around? But Nazz surprised her yet again.

"No," Nazz said softly. "I… need to see this."

_"That will never be…"_

Sarah sighed, and tugged on Jimmy's hand. But when she looked at him, his eyes were glued to Eddy, his breathing coming in little shallow gasps. He didn't even notice when she dropped his hand.

_ "That will never…"_

Frustrated with them both and Eddy too, Sarah stalked off - let the others sort through their little drama. She wanted none of it. She had more important things to do with her time.

Yet halfway to her house she changed direction, and entered Jimmy's instead.

_"…never be…"_

His house was empty, quiet. A welcome relief from the bloody chaos outside. She wandered upstairs to Jimmy's room, a sanctuary she had always cherished. Jimmy had no older brother to mess up his things, no father who said nothing or mother who was too easily fooled by big eyes and fake tears. No, Jimmy's father pushed him too hard, but he was kind enough to her, and his mother smelled like lemon and gave her kisses on the cheek like she was a good girl, even though she knew better, even though now Sarah was too old.

_ "'Cause I'm not beautiful like you…"_

_His dad just uses your presence as a sign that his son isn't a sissy. Even though Jimmy only kisses you when you make him. And his mother lets him get away with murder, just like yours does for you. Don't kid yourself, Sarah_.

But not even her own traitorous thoughts could make this place less of a home.

_"I'm not beautiful like you…"_

No one was there at the moment, though, and for that Sarah was grateful. Until Jimmy got done watching Eddy be pounded into the pavement, she wanted to rest in his room. His bed was even more comfortable than hers, and it smelled like he did… Like sweetness, fabric softener, soap, fresh flowers… Everything soft and clean and pure.

_"I'm not beautiful like you…"_

She'd heard their fathers talking once as they watched television in her living room, Jimmy's father lamenting how Sarah was the son he'd never had, that Jimmy could've been her own father's daughter instead. She'd been hiding in the back of the room, hiding so her daddy wouldn't see the mud she'd dragged in with her (that way later she could blame it on Ed), but she paused in her silent crawl towards the doorway. Surely her father would disagree, and defend her and Jimmy.

But he never did.

_"I'm beautiful like me."_

And why would he? She knew she was less of a woman than Nazz, less of a woman than even Jimmy. He'd hate her forever if she said it to his face, but it was still true. He was the woman in their relationship - soft, gentle, secretive.

And she was the man - loud, blundering… _stupid_.

_"Beautiful like me…"_

She collapsed on Jimmy's bed; her eyes ached. What a stupid, ridiculous, _pointless_ day this was turning out to be. Nothing had gone right - nothing had gone the way she wanted. As if she even _knew_ what she wanted…

She rolled over onto her stomach, shoving her hands under Jimmy's pillows so she could rest her head on them more comfortably. If she could only-

_ "…beautiful like me…"_

Her hand had brushed up against something out of place among Jimmy's (synthetic, hypoallergenic) silk sheets and ultra-soft pillows. She pulled it out, staring in mute, stupefied amazement at the familiar piece of black fabric clutched in her suddenly strengthless fist.

_ "…I'm beautiful like me…"_

Because in all the times she'd ever seen that hat, it hadn't ever _not_ been on Double D's head.

_"…I'm beautiful like me."_

Her stomach sank.


	19. Chapter 19 All That Is

Disclaimer - I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or "Sputter". The Eds belong to all those cool folk at Cartoon Network and AKA Cartoon, and the song belongs to The Academy Is…. This story is rated M, in case you didn't know that by now.

I've been wanting to write this chapter almost from the first time I heard this song. It helped propel me into writing again. And it fit Double D and Eddy so well, in fact, that I got a bit intimidated. 'lol' But I feel a lot better now that it's written.

To everyone who has read this far, a huge thank you for holding on.

Also, I've gotten a few comments saying that the song lyrics are distracting; I've also gotten a few liking them. To those who dislike it, my apologies - this started out as a one-shot songfic, and I can't imagine changing things now. That said, I may upload these chapters without song lyrics to deviantart, just so those who find it irritating can avoid them. I haven't done it yet, but I'm thinking about it…

And a quick warning - this chapter is almost double the length of what a normal StM chapter is. Sorry about that.

Again, my thanks to darthelwig, without whom this fic would not exist.

Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

-----

All That Is

by Ghost Helwig

-----

Eddy opened his eyes. The inside of his mouth felt like cotton, and tasted of copper - he'd barely managed to pull his broken body back to his house to collapse on his bed the day before, and so he hadn't bothered brushing his teeth or even changing his clothes before falling into a long, fitful sleep. No one had helped him stand up after the beating, no one had checked on him, they'd all just left him there, bruised and bleeding onto the concrete-

But screw them; all of them. He didn't need them, anyway.

"_Wake up."_

He forced himself to get up, to change his clothes even though his aching body burned under the effort of moving. Just to prove that he could, he made his careful way into his bathroom to brush his teeth, scrubbing away the taste of his own blood. It was so easy, really, to remove the stain from inside his mouth - if only it were that easy to remove the stains under his skin.

Restless after his rudimentary cleansing, he stepped outside his room, feeling the early morning air wash over him in a cool wave. It would get hot soon, this late in the summer, but for now he was enjoying the soothing brush of cool air on his heated, hurting flesh.

He knew none of them would expect to see him out and about today. The thought of rubbing it in their faces that they couldn't keep him down was vaguely pleasing, but it wasn't the reason he walked out into the cul-de-sac.

He couldn't see into Double D's house from his own backyard.

"_Try on your new disguise."_

As expected, though it was excruciatingly early, so early that the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and though Eddy had gone to sleep far earlier than any normal eighteen-year-old would, Double D was already up when Eddy peeked in his living room window. He was glad Double D woke up with the sun for the first time in his life - if he'd had to climb the tree next to Double D's window just to get a peek at him, he would've died.

Though… It was still fairly dark out, and Double D had taken to never leaving his bedroom until the early morning light flooded into his house. So why the change? Had he been unable to sleep the night before? Eddy peered closer, wanting to see Double D's face as he bustled about his living room, dusting everything in sight…

And it finally occurred to Eddy what was _truly_ wrong with the picture before him.

"_Would they recognize you anyway?"_

There was a… a _thing_ on Double D's head. A red handkerchief that looked familiar, though it took him a moment to place it. Ah, yes - the same one Double D had worn around his neck when they tried to become Urban Rangers so many years ago. It was tied around his head like a headband, with a large swath of the fabric draped over his head, covering his hair. He supposed it was all Double D had had to use, but it looked all wrong.

Why was he bothering anyway? Eddy had never understood that. Double D's desperate need to cover his hair had never been explained to him, and it just made no sense. Eddy made a point of showing off everything that made him look good, but Double D seemed determined to hide it; as though his good looks were shameful somehow.

_No one cares what you look like Edd. Trust me._

"_Would they?"_

_They're too wrapped up in themselves to notice._

"_Dead leaves lie down beneath your feet…"_

As Eddy watched, Double D finished his dusting, and glanced around him, as though searching for more to do. Finally he appeared to give up, his shoulders hunching forward, his eyes falling to the floor. Eddy waited with his heart caught in his throat, resisting the temptation to knock on the window, to expose himself. It was amazing Double D hadn't noticed him there - though he was mostly hidden in the shrubbery next to Double D's house, he wasn't making a special effort to hide himself from Double D's eyes; he would've expected Double D's instincts to let him feel another's presence. To let him feel _Eddy_.

It hurt a little, deep down, that that wasn't the case.

All of a sudden Double D moved forward, surprising Eddy by opening his front door and going outside. Eddy followed him, not moving any closer to Double D but instead stalking him from the shadows. He didn't feel right, getting closer. Not without Double D's invitation.

"…_As you step into the street…"_

Double D stopped at the end of his driveway, looking around. His gaze lingered on Ed's home at the end of the cul-de-sac for just a moment, Eddy wondering what Double D thought he could see down there in the gloom. But then Double D moved, his head staying turned in the direction of Eddy's house for a long time, and Eddy's breath caught in his throat when he noticed Double D staring.

Should he move forward now? Admit to Double D that he was right here, _right here_, ready to apologize, to listen, to _heal_?

"_Notice the distance between hearts and homes."_

He wanted to. He told his feet to move. He willed his mouth to open.

But nothing happened.

"_But still you know it's alright…"_

He was close enough to hear Double D's quiet sigh, the familiar, distinctive hiss of air through the gap in his front teeth. He was close enough to see those slight shoulders tremble briefly, before straightening as Double D turned away from his house.

He was close enough to practically feel Double D's emotions, the sadness and the helplessness and the resigned fear, that radiated from him in waves.

Eddy wanted to take all that away from him. To smooth his hair back from his face (as that handkerchief wasn't nearly as good at keeping his hair in place as his hat had been), take those shaking hands in his, and kiss him so breathless his kiss would say everything he couldn't get out.

"_You're not looking back this time."_

But Double D had had enough of his wants to last him a lifetime. It was figuring out what _Double D_ wanted, what he needed, that would be the real trick.

The thought crossed his mind, briefly, that perhaps Double D now wanted Ed. He had to stifle an inappropriate little laugh. If he did, that was the one thing Eddy couldn't give him. He hadn't seen Ed since… He couldn't even remember.

He was neglecting Ed. Letting Ed sit in his pain and the lack of understanding that surely came with it. He knew that, but he couldn't bear to do anything about it. Just thinking about Double D in Ed's arms made the red threaten to return to his vision - and he couldn't be angry at Double D right now. He couldn't afford to be. He'd never even _try_ to help Double D if he let any of the anger seep back in - he knew himself well enough to know that.

But how fitting it would be, a tiny, judgmental voice in the back of his mind taunted him, if the two people he'd used (_and misused_) the most found love without him.

"_You know it's alright…"_

Double D turned towards him then, and Eddy stiffened, expecting to be spotted, his mind flying over possible explanations for his presence in Double D's bushes. But Double D's eyes were downcast, and he never looked up from the driveway. His gaze seemed to be tracing over the cracks in the concrete, the _imperfections_ Eddy knew he hated.

He stared as Double D deliberately placed his bare foot over one, the oddness of seeing Double D stand anywhere outside without shoes on suddenly hitting Eddy hard. How _different_ Double D was now. It was as if the boy he'd known had broken into a million pieces, and whoever had put him back together hadn't gotten them all - there were things missing, other parts put back in random, wrong places. The whole held, but nothing fit.

He wondered if Double D felt that way, too.

"_You're stepping on the cracks…"_

Double D was tracing a crack (that Eddy could just barely see) with his big toe, over and over, back and forth. Very deliberately, he stepped down, frowning as he did so. Eddy nearly missed the whisper that floated into his ears.

"Somehow, I don't think I've broken your back, Mother."

"_And you feel fine."_

Eddy froze. Had something happened with Double D's parents? Had they finally called to congratulate him on a graduation that was now months past? He'd never heard Double D sound so _bitter_ when talking about them, so something must have gone on…

He wanted to ask. The depth of the desire surprised him. He'd forgotten he could feel so strongly about something unrelated to him, something that was Double D's alone…

And he suddenly found himself angry. But not at Double D, or even Ed. At _himself_.

"_Don't waste your breath."_

No wonder he couldn't go to Double D's side. How could he? He was still as self-obsessed and selfish and _blind_ as he'd ever been. Perhaps it was a mercy, to just let Double D be alone, no matter how nervous and lonely he knew Double D was. Would his company really be any better?

"_You wouldn't want this anyway."_

Double D had made himself clear, hadn't he? Eddy had forgotten, in the wake of his discovery of what had happened to Double D; his worry had wiped the slate clean, at least for a while. But as he watched Double D, disturbingly dainty foot poised over that crack again, sliding along it, he remembered everything.

The van. His own voice, screaming. The horror on Double D's face, on Ed's - and something he'd been too upset to process at the time, but that his memory showed him clearly now.

Double D had been shirtless in Ed's arms, that much was true - but there had been marks on his pale flesh. Eddy hadn't gotten a good look at them, in his anger, in his rush to _be_ angry and to leave; but looking back, he knew what they were.

Bruises.

"_If you did I think I'd let you…"_

How could he expect Double D to forgive him for this? To let him back in, when all he kept doing was hurting him? He made every pain Double D felt just _grow_ - as if it needed the help.

If he thought for a moment Double D would accept him back, he'd jump at the chance. Because he _was_ selfish, and even if it would be better for Double D he'd never deny himself. How could he? He couldn't resist Double D, not when they were kids, and certainly not now…

"_...talk this to death…"_

He'd do anything to win Double D back. Anything. He'd declare himself to be the faggot he'd accused Double D of being, in front of everyone (_fuck them, anyway_), if he thought it would help - he'd sleep on Double D's floor if he thought it would help - he'd let himself _cry_ in front of Double D if he thought it would help, and he never did that in front of _anybody_.

Anything Double D wanted, or needed, he would give, if it would only fix things between them.

"…_or in circles like we're aeroplanes…"_

The only thing he doubted his ability to do, was change.

"_When all along I knew that we would sputter out."_

He wanted to. He was certain he could even _try_ to - he was a determined person, he could probably give it a good, healthy try. But could he stick to it? Change into someone nicer, more sensitive, more able to meet Double D's needs; and then remain that way?

Impossible. He wasn't that good a person.

He knew that. He was pretty sure he'd always known that. Just as he'd always known that he and Double D were doomed from the start.

"_We would sputter…"_

Finally tiring of whatever it was he had been doing, Double D made his way quickly back into his house, closing the door firmly behind him; he moved so fast Eddy could almost picture the demons he felt sure Double D was feeling following him, ready to pounce. Little did he know that the only demon stalking him had no intention of hurting him anymore.

Or following him, for that matter.

The distinct _click_ of the door closing, the lock turning, spurred Eddy into motion. He couldn't be here anymore. It was driving him crazy.

He needed some sort of release; he needed someone to talk to. Selfish as it was to take Ed away from Double D's possible comfort, or to even consider seeing Ed just because _he_ was lonely, he found his traitorous feet carrying him toward Ed's house regardless. He'd depended on Ed too long; he couldn't very well stop _now_.

"_Outside construction workers pour…"_

He reached Ed's house and walked around it, finding Ed's window with ease. The sunlight falling around him was growing brighter, but even if it hadn't been, he could've walked from Double D's house to Ed's in his sleep. He'd walked the path often enough that he even walked it _in_ his dreams sometimes…

Especially lately.

Crouching low, he peered in Ed's window, squinting to see. He couldn't quite make out Ed's bed off to the side, though the rustling he could hear coming out of the half-open window hinted that Ed was there, moving restlessly. He tried so hard to see Ed there, to catch even a small glimpse of him, that for a minute he didn't take it what else was in the room.

Or rather, _who_.

"_A brand new basement floor…"_

But what in the world was Sarah doing in Ed's bedroom?

"_But then the ground starts shaking…"_

She looked up then, straight into Eddy's eyes. He nearly jumped at having his gaze returned; he'd been starting to feel a little invisible. But Sarah didn't even appear surprised to see him. They stared at each other for a minute, neither moving, Eddy not daring to even blink (and give her the satisfaction? Never).

Finally Sarah stood up from her position sitting on Ed's floor, one careless hand rising to push her bright red hair behind her ear. Eddy watched her walk off, and he thought he could hear her feet heavy on the stairs, the slam of Ed's bedroom door.

And still, that weird rustling sound went on.

He waited, listening, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He didn't know exactly what he was waiting for, but something was going to happen. He could taste it on the air, a sharp electricity that bit into his tongue. So he waited, even though waiting ranked high on the list of things he hated to do.

The soft slap of shoes on dew-wet grass alerted him, and he stood, turning to face Sarah when she came around the house.

"_Fault lines to your own front door."_

She didn't waste any time. Digging into her pocket, she pulled out something black and familiar, and shoved it into Eddy's hands.

"I found this," she said, blue eyes narrowed, blazing even in the morning sun. "Return it, burn it, I don't care. Just get it out of my house."

Eddy looked down, feeling the soft knitting slide between his fingers, catching a hint of white amid all the black. Disturbed, he looked up at Sarah, wanting answers he wasn't even sure she could give him.

"Ed would never have taken this from-" He stopped, and cleared his throat before he tried again. "Ed would never have taken this."

"No," she snapped. "He didn't."

And it was then, in that moment, with her hair a wild flame around her head and her eyes shooting daggers at him, that he knew who she was - and who she was protecting.

He looked back down, studying the soft fabric he clutched tightly in his hands.

"_I looked at this and thought of you."_

He could see Double D wearing this hat as they performed some new, destined-to-fail scam; as they walked the halls in school, talking and laughing; he could even see it on him as he slept in a tent in Ed's yard. So many memories… And all tied up in one old, well-loved, well-cared for hat that really did look like a big sock.

But as he stared, other memories came pushing to the forefront… Like seeing Double D without it for the first time, and the shock he and Ed had felt at such an anti-climactic revelation of there being _nothing_ weird or ugly under there. (And yet, Eddy still threatened him with taking it away, because for some reason to Double D that _nothing_ needed to be protected at all costs.) Or stealing that hat from Double D the one and only time he had, in a moment of desperation…

And the best memories, the ones he shared with no one else, not even Ed - of pulling that hat off, letting that sweet-smelling hair down, feeling it, smooth and silky as it ran over his fingers… Of tangling his fingers in that dark hair as he pulled Double D's head back to reach his neck for a kiss, or to further pin Double D as he thrust into him as they lay entwined on the bed…

So many memories. He wanted to drown in all of them.

"_And all that is and isn't true."_

And at the back of his head, other memories reared up - memories he wished would stay dead.

Calling Double D a fag. Hitting him. _Yelling_ at him after he'd been - Eddy's mind glossed over the word instinctively - and scaring him into that earth-shattering _howl_… He couldn't remember anymore, why this had started. Was it Kevin? He always assumed everything was Kevin-

Although this time, as he thought about it more, he realized that it was.

Kevin… And _him_.

He'd gotten jealous. Kevin had been flirting with Double D, and even though he knew Kevin was just doing it to cause trouble, to get laughs at Double D's expense (and poor, innocent Double D, as clueless in his way as Ed, had not even an inkling that he was the butt of all the jokes), he'd been angry, anyway. _Really, Eddy, when _aren't_ you angry?_ (His inner voice, for a moment, so sounded like Double D that a poignant ache centered in his chest, and stayed there.)

And he'd taken it out on Double D. Betrayed him. He'd started this whole stupid mess.

"_And with the strength left in me…"_

He brushed past Sarah with a stiff, tiny nod of acknowledgement, forgetting her as soon as he walked away from her. Though she turned to follow him with her eyes, he didn't even notice.

He could feel something breaking inside him, crumbling away into nothingness. If he'd given it any thought, he would've expected such a feeling to be accompanied by pain.

But instead, he had never felt more free.

"…_walked on while the walls came down."_

Even the pain of his body was melting away, _burning_ away as the heat inside him flooded outwards. He felt… _good_, for the first time in ages. Good…

And ready.

"_It's alright."_

Fuck the cul-de-sac and (almost) all of its residents. Sarah and Jonny got something of a pass for their honesty in trying to help Double D in their own (_stubborn, ridiculous_) ways, but they were still both absolutely crazy, and though he found he didn't hate them, he wanted nothing to do with them. Fuck these people and this place and most especially his parents, for leaving him in it.

But as dismissive of the others as he was, he could never let Ed or Double D go.

"_You're not looking back this time."_

Fuck his issues. Fuck his damnable _pride_. He was tired of worrying about what Kevin would think, what his parents would think, what the world would do to him. That was the past. He wanted a future, the one he'd been silently hoping for for longer than he cared to admit.

If he could just… handle things with care for once, maybe it could all be fixed. He had to believe that. Being hopeless was never his way.

"_You know it's alright…"_

_I'll make mistakes. But screw it - what's new?_

"_I'm stepping on the cracks…"_

_Ed, Edd, and I - mistakes are what we _do.

"_And I feel fine."_

He stopped at his house, stepping inside his room with a slight bounce in his step. It hurt, walking so carefree, but he couldn't help it - hope was flooding his lungs, making him giddy. He carefully placed Double D's hat on the table beside his bed, the cleanest part of his room. _Eddward_ would just have a _fit_ if he got that precious hat dirty…

That thought gave him pause, and took the giddiness from his stomach completely. Double D had been _hurt_, hurt worse than he could even imagine… There was no guarantee he could help Double D with his pain. In fact, there was a very good chance that he couldn't. There was a very good chance that Double D would never be whole or truly happy again.

_Oh, shut _up_, Edgar. He's never ever been _happy.

"_Don't waste your breath…"_

He thought about that as he showered, turning the thought over and over in his head. Had Double D never been happy? Really?

The memories twisted inside him, focused on small smiles, whispered glee, loud laughter…

And the icy silence inside Double D's home.

"_You wouldn't want this anyway."_

Even if he had been happy, what he'd experienced would hurt him in ways Eddy knew he wouldn't, _didn't_, understand. He didn't kid himself - he knew nothing about dealing with… _that_. Beyond seeing depictions of its aftermath in movies and television shows (which always seemed to tie that pain up in a neat little bow by the end of the allotted time), he had nothing to go on… And he was no Ed. He never confused movies and television with reality.

Not anymore, anyway.

But if he could just… Reach out to Double D, maybe? Would that be enough?

"_If you did…"_

He stepped out of the shower, steam billowing around him. He winced as he pulled a fluffy towel around himself, drying himself off methodically, wincing every time he brushed up against another bruise. His sides were aching more and more as the day went on - kneeling down to see in Ed's window had perhaps been a mistake - but he couldn't let it stop him. Even if his body felt like it was on _fire_; and not the pleasant fire of his happiness, that slow burning outwards, but a raging _inferno_.

He had to try, didn't he? After everything he'd done, he had to try.

"…_I think I'd let you…"_

Even if Double D yelled. Even if he screamed at the top of his lungs. Even if he threw Eddy out and told him never to come by - let alone touch him - again.

"…_talk this to death…"_

He'd be willing to let Double D do or say or feel whatever he needed to, if he could just be near him for a moment… If he could just say the words that had been bubbling inside him since Sarah had given him the gift of simply touching something of Double D's again. He might even thank her for that one day.

One day in the far, far future.

What mattered now was letting Double D talk. Letting him rage.

And then telling him the truth.

"…_or in circles like we're aeroplanes…"_

He yanked on his clothes, pausing briefly to let the pain that had made him clench his teeth around a scream of his own pass. He thought about interrupting his routine to grab a couple of painkillers, but vanity won out - he'd get some later, on his way out of the house. He wanted to make sure he looked his best before he did anything else.

He grabbed his brush off the table in front of his mirror, letting his eyes briefly roam over to where Double D's hat lay, an incongruous item amid his own messy, well-worn things.

But he liked seeing it there. Beside his bed. In easy reach of his own questing fingers…

And implying by its very existence there that its owner was somewhere nearby, comfortable enough to let his hair down.

"_When all along I knew that we would sputter out."_

He'd never expected to want that. To desire Double D in his room - he'd actively fought against that, once - in his life… And even now that he realized how badly he wanted it, there was a part of him that told him he would never, ever get it.

"_We would sputter…"_

It sounded like Kevin's condemnations, his laughter. Like his parents' disapproval. Like his older brother's teasing, biting scorn.

"_We would sputter…"_

But it no longer sounded Double D, and so that voice could go to hell.

"_We would sputter…"_

Eddy finished brushing his hair, flicking it around with a few practiced hand motions so that it fell the way he wanted it to. Then he dropped his arms with a groan - all that lifting of his arms to handle the hairbrush had cost him. He was stiff and aching all the way down to his toes.

He walked over to the dresser, favoring his left side - Kevin had gotten in the most punches and kicks there. But somewhere in this top drawer he was certain he had a bottle of painkillers left over from his last agonizing day…

There. He pulled it out, and downed two pills quickly, regretting it when it felt like they stayed lodged in his throat. Making his way into the bathroom for water was a chore, but he did it, focusing not on the pain, but on his plans. His vague but determined plans.

This would all be worth it in the end. This whole damn _summer_ would be worth it in the end.

"_We would sputter out…"_

No matter what he had to do or who he had to kill - and he could think of _one_ person who fit that bill already - he was going to turn his, Ed's, and especially Double D's damnable luck around.

"_We would sputter out…"_

When he finally opened the door to his bedroom, he stopped, bewildered. What had been shaping up to be a pleasant summer's day had turned into a rainstorm while he wasn't paying attention. He sighed, trying to let the aggravation go.

_If this is your way of trying to break my resolve, universe, you're gonna haveta' do better than a bit of rain._

As if in answer, the sky above let out a boom of thunder.

"_Don't waste your breath…"_

Eddy looked over his shoulder at his closet, where all his raincoats and his umbrella were. It looked so far away.

Sighing again, and mourning the loss of his perfect hair, Eddy walked out into the rain, shutting his door resolutely behind him.

"Summer rains," he muttered. "You can never predict them."

"_You wouldn't want this anyway."_

Despite the pain he was in, and the chill now biting into his bones (or perhaps because of them), he made it to Double D's house in record time. He stood in front of the door, shifting nervously for a moment, reaching up to try to smooth his hair into some sort of calm. When the wind picked up and blew his soaked shirt away from his chest, he gave up on his hair as a lost cause, and knocked.

The sound got lost in the wind, and he rang the doorbell instead, cursing himself afterwards for not giving Double D enough time to react to the knock before he decided he hadn't even heard it. How desperate did he want to appear, exactly? He straightened, ignoring the pain in his chest and his sides and the fluttering nervousness in his stomach, and waited.

And waited.

"'_Cause if you did…"_

_Not again. Do not let him be god-knows-where that isn't _here_**again**_.

Just as he was about to ring the doorbell again, the door opened.

"_I think I'd let you."_

Double D stood staring out at him, green eyes wide with surprise (_and no pleasure_, Eddy noted sourly). The handkerchief was still around his head, wisps of dark hair spilling out around his face, lines of darkness marring an otherwise perfect expanse of pale skin.

Without thinking, he reached up to brush those tiny hairs away.

"_Talk this to death..."_

The skin under his wet fingers was warm and soft… The drops of water his touch left behind looked inviting, delicious. Only a small sound coming from Double D's throat allowed him to tear his gaze away.

"_Or in circles like we're aeroplanes…"_

Double D was frankly staring at him now, his lips parted just the tiniest bit in a look of surprise that only seemed to deepen as Eddy watched. For a moment, he was vastly amused. _You'd think I never come here._

That thought sobered him. Obviously Double D hadn't thought he ever would again.

"_When all along I knew that we would sputter out…"_

"Stupid Sockhead," Eddy whispered, watching Double D's eyes. "As if I could stay away."

"_(We would sputter…)"_

The wind blew rain hard against Eddy's back; it splashed past him, missing Double D, whose slender body was guarded by Eddy's much larger one, but soaking his floor. As a particularly heavy gust blew Eddy's hair around his face, a very young, very innocent part of him expected Double D to hurriedly invite him in, to begin chastising him for letting in the rain, as he would have when they were children.

But Double D just kept staring at him, apparently pushed past all limits of rational thought.

"_When all along…"_

_I don't know if I can do this._

"_I knew that we would sputter out…"_

_He's… broken._

"_(We would sputter…)"_

But as he stared at those perfect lips, the wind at his back, the rain pouring down, even the pain in his frozen limbs - it all ceased to matter. Even his nerves didn't matter. What mattered was those eyes, those lips, that heart he'd helped to break…

"_When all along I knew…"_

He traced a finger over Double D's lips, pulling the bottom one down just a little, relishing the softness under his questing hand. Double D licked his lips free of the rainwater Eddy had left behind, an obviously subconscious gesture, and Eddy couldn't take it anymore. This was too much temptation.

He leaned in, careful not to press his wet body against Double D's, and captured his mouth with a deep kiss.

"_That we would sputter out…"_

Even as Eddy pulled away, he knew he was losing it. He'd intended to _wait_, for once in his life, to not push things and to let Double D set the pace, to let him make the decisions, to let them _talk_ first… But it was all out of his hands, now. His control was hopelessly shattered.

Double D's eyes had fluttered closed as they kissed, and Eddy watched them open slowly with a feeling of sudden wonderment flooding through his veins. Double D had beautiful eyes - especially when he was looking at Eddy like _that_, with a startled, shy pleasure that reminded him of their first kiss (their first _real_ one, and not the one Kevin had forced upon them)…

"_We would sputter…"_

It was like watching him wake up from a very dark dream. Double D blinked at him, slowly taking in where they were, and the wind and rain falling all around them. He shivered, and Eddy immediately reached out to rub his hands swiftly up and down Double D's arms. He could feel Double D readying himself to speak, and even though Eddy had come there with the intention of listening there was something he desperately wanted to say; before whatever Double D told him had the chance to knock him out of this beautiful sensation of utter freedom.

But first…

He reached up with one hand, and swiftly untied the handkerchief. He let it fall to the ground, but before it hit a stray gust carried it further into the room. Double D had made another small noise when he realized what Eddy had done, but he made no move to retrieve the handkerchief, and for that Eddy was grateful.

He just wanted to see that long dark hair again. To see the beauty that Double D so loathed.

To relish it, in this last moment.

"_We would sputter down."_

He moved closer, invading Double D's personal space, getting close enough where he could feel Double D's heat. One hand tangled in Double D's unbound hair; the other found the small of his back, cradled him there. Thunder rolled by overhead, and he let it pass, content to just hold Double D until it did. Then he leaned in, kissing Double D's cheek, and letting his breath ghost across Double D's mouth as he spoke.

"I love you."


End file.
